


But It Wouldn't Be Make-Believe

by ineffablefool



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (he's fat and gorgeous okay i don't make the rules), (pretty mild but it's there), Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Asexual Relationship, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Chubby Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Happy Ending, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Internalized Fatphobia, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, No Sex, No Smut, Oblivious Aziraphale and Crowley (Good Omens), Pining, belly kisses, fat positivity, it'll probably be medium angst at most, oblivious dove do not eat, seriously so much mutual pining you could turn the entire earth into a forest, some swearing and some ableist language, they are sharing the crown of King Of Missing Every Single Signal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24003844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablefool/pseuds/ineffablefool
Summary: Crowley wants just one visit home to see his mum without her trying to fix him up with some nice young lady.  He also wants very, very much to kiss Aziraphale, a lot.  If only there was some way for him to accomplish both of these goals at once without having to actually ask Aziraphale out, which he is one thousand percent too chicken to do.(Fake dating AU with the mutual pining cranked up to 12.  Alternating POV, mild angst, ending is as soft as a bushel of baby ducklings.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1049
Kudos: 599
Collections: Ace-Friendly Aziraphale Belly Kiss Fics, Aspec-friendly Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley Human AUs, Good Omens Human AUs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome (or welcome back) to the Soft Zone(TM)! For those who are new: everything here is asexual and fat-positive. And ridiculously piney, a lot of the time. Hang on to that last bit, it's going to be important.
> 
> I've read a few Aziraphale/Crowley fake dating human AUs, but in every one, it's Aziraphale's idea, and it's Aziraphale POV. I decided to try writing one where it's Crowley's idea, and I wound up doing an alternating POV between the two of them. And this is it! I'm written ahead a few chapters, and hopefully I'll be able to keep that up through the end. If you have read my other multi-chapter human AUs (I really did not expect to turn into a Human AU writer and yet huh here we are), this is probably closer in tone to [If Not Now, When](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20936816/chapters/49775579) than to [Error 404: Crowley's Brain Cell Not Found](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22544389/chapters/53871010).
> 
>  **Please read this part, it is important:** **First of all** , there will be some internalized fatphobia on Aziraphale's part. Not a lot, because the Aziraphale here has gone through a lot of work in his past to come to a fairly loving understanding of his body. But that doesn't mean he expects the world to also love it. **And second of all,** the mutual pining in this story is going to be... ridiculous. Really, really ridiculous. The back-and-forth POV, and the fake-dating setup, will allow both characters to be _incredibly blatantly obvious_ about how into each other they are, while simultaneously both being _completely convinced_ that their feelings are totally unrequited. Please do not get into this story expecting either of them to act how a human would be likely to act in real life. Please do not comment saying "gosh I would like this story if they weren't both so oblivious". This story exists solely for me to indulge my love of their mutual lovestruck idiocy. Oblivious Dove, Do Not Eat.
> 
> If that sounds fun, though, good news! Here is a story you might like.
> 
> I'm writing for the TV characterization, but I've decided that my written Aziraphale is visibly fat. Tumblr and AO3 user Squeegeelicious has created [this absolutely gorgeous artwork](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189282541139/squeegeelicious-a-walk-to-the-ritz-for) for my first human AU [If Not Now, When](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20936816), which should help you know what to visualize as you read!
> 
> Title inspo: It's Only A Paper Moon has been recorded many times, including by Ella Fitzgerald; but I've been a Deep Space Nine kid ever since it was originally running in the 90s, and that means I like the [James Darren](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep_6BVz0Gnk) version best.
> 
> _It's only a paper moon  
>  Hangin' over a cardboard sea  
> But it wouldn't be make-believe  
> If you believed in me_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter-level warning notes:**
> 
>   * The word "fat" is used in a neutral-to-positive context
>   * Reference to biphobia
> 


Aziraphale saw him first, just coming around the corner from the opposite direction. He was looking down at his phone, somehow managing to not run into anyone. Or perhaps everyone just knew to get out of his way. Certainly the man had a presence — Aziraphale had noticed it the very first time he’d seen him, right here on this street. He’d been leaving the cafe then, while Aziraphale had been entering it.

Now they were both walking toward the door, approaching from opposite sides. Aziraphale had a moment to appreciate once again how his shoulder-length hair flamed in the sun, how his narrow face caught the light in elegantly sharp planes. He moved with a peculiar lithe saunter which should have looked, quite frankly, ridiculous, except he committed to it so completely that it became fascinating instead.

He looked up when he was still a ways down the pavement, and behind the sunglasses his unseen eyes could have been looking anywhere. He grinned, though. The phone went into a pocket. He should have reached the cafe door well before Aziraphale, with his long legs, and with Aziraphale’s progress slowed by having to maneuver his wider body through the unforgiving crowd. Instead they met just outside it.

“G’morning, Aziraphale,” the man said, in that rough, lazy voice of his.

“Hello, Crowley. How are you?”

The handsome smile widened. “Caffeine and company. Looking up, I think.”

He pulled open the door with a flourish. “After you...?”

Aziraphale murmured something polite as he stepped through. There was a short line at the counter, but that was all right; it would give him more time to perhaps chat with Crowley.

He stood behind Aziraphale now, back on his phone, as though he hadn’t been very charmingly referencing Aziraphale’s company just a moment ago. The man was dreadfully confusing. He wasn’t quite a friend, but he wasn’t a stranger either. They’d been bumping into each other at the cafe on a fairly regular basis for months, now, slipping into an easy conversation each time.

He knew Crowley worked as a graphic designer, usually freelance; Crowley knew that he owned a bookshop, usually unprofitable. They had a number of interests in common, although they still apparently didn’t run in quite the same circles.

Crowley acted as though he were glad to see him whenever they spoke, yet made no suggestion that they meet up anywhere else.

Dreadfully confusing. Rather inconvenient that Aziraphale had been developing feelings for him since about their fourth conversation.

“Lot of ducklings at St. James’s,” Crowley said abruptly. “Three or four little families of ‘em. Been to feed them yet?”

Aziraphale turned back to look at him. “I haven’t, no. Though it does sound like a lovely idea.”

“Yeah.” Crowley’s sunglasses looked in his direction a while longer before aiming down at his phone again. He didn’t say anything more.

Aziraphale ordered his coffee and a couple of scones, then took up a spot at the far end of the counter to wait. Crowley sauntered up to his left a minute later.

“Really cute,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale looked around. Was someone walking a dog outside, or...?

Crowley’s jaw snapped shut, then opened again so he could blurt “The ducks! Ducklings. They’re cute. Just, just adorable. That’s all.”

“Ah. Yes, they usually are.”

There was a faint dusting of pink across Crowley’s face. Perhaps he thought that Aziraphale thought — really, though, he should assume that Aziraphale did own a mirror. That Aziraphale knew exactly what he looked like: plain at best, in the right lighting, and at a very forgiving angle. Simply ugly the rest of the time. It came of being so fat. Not something he had any intention of changing — he and his body had a very good understanding by this point — but it did have certain undeniable effects on his personal life. No one would ever find _him_ attractive.

* * *

Bloody hell, that had been close. “Really cute,” oh sure, just say that without any preamble. Bad enough the stupid flirtatious nonsense outside, but at least that could maybe be excused as just friendliness. If Aziraphale thought Crowley was calling him “cute” — yeah. No. That would be impossible to smooth over.

Aziraphale wasn’t cute, anyway. Aziraphale was knock-down, drop-dead gorgeous, and Crowley had had a crush on him from the first time they’d met.

“Shop,” he remarked, falling back on the kind of conversation that was all his single brain cell seemed capable of when the two of them were in the same place. “How’s it going? Sell any books today?”

“Not willingly,” Aziraphale sighed. “I had to let go a rather splendid early edition of _A Tale Of Two Cities_ when I was offered a price it would have been imprudent to refuse.”

Crowley grinned. “Tough break.”

“Yes, yes, I know. At least I’ll be able to keep myself in coffee and scones for a while.”

Aziraphale’s name was called out. Crowley watched him walk to the counter, thinking about asking him out. Would be so easy. “Aziraphale, would you like to get dinner sometime?” And then Aziraphale would maybe say yes, and Crowley would take him anywhere in the city, would buy him anything and everything he wanted, just to see him smile...

“Crowley?”

He blinked. Aziraphale wasn’t at the counter anymore. He was right in front of Crowley, holding out one cup of coffee, and juggling a second with the bag of scones in his other hand.

“They called your name too, so I went ahead and picked yours up...”

Pretty face turned up to him, blue eyes and pink mouth and round cheeks that would be so soft, if Crowley were to kiss them. All of Aziraphale would be so soft. Soft and fat and perfect to hold, if Crowley could just get up the nerve to _start_ something by asking him on a simple bloody date...

“ _Crowley_.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Their hands brushed as he took the coffee. Aziraphale’s hands were soft and fat and perfect, too.

“Goodness, you were far away. Anything the matter?”

“No.” He sipped at his coffee. “Just thinking about... stuff.”

Aziraphale hesitated. “Well. I probably shouldn’t take up any more of your time, so I’ll just be popping along to my shop now.”

Crowley’s phone buzzed in his hand. His mum was trying to get him back home for a family dinner, only when he got there she’d have another nice young lady just happened to stop by, oh yes, this is my friend’s daughter or my coworker’s sister or the neighbor’s niece, she shares so many of your interests, why don’t you two get to know each other? Same thing it’d been for years. She was just getting so bloody insistent now he was almost forty.

He didn’t want to get to know whatever nice young lady his mum had lined up, though. He wanted to get to know _Aziraphale_. Gorgeous fat clever funny Aziraphale.

Who was frowning, now, because instead of answering either the phone or him, Crowley was just staring into space.

“Have a good day, Crowley.” Eyes darkening as he started to turn away. Probably miffed at how rude Crowley was being, blanking out like this —

“You, uh. You too, yeah?”

Aziraphale’s eyes brightened again. He smiled — Crowley’s heart tripped over itself at the sight — and headed toward the door with a little more cheer in his step.

Crowley picked up just before the call would go to voicemail. “G’morning, mum.”

He happened to catch Aziraphale’s eye one last time as he was opening the door.

“Goodbye, Crowley,” Aziraphale called to him.

“Bye, Aziraphale.”

The door jingled behind him, and he was gone. Crowley probably wouldn’t see him again for at least three or four days.

“Oh,” said the voice on the phone, sounding very interested. “Who’s ‘Aziraphale’, then? Someone I should know about?”

Crowley sighed. “No one, mum. Someone I chat with sometimes when we run into each other.”

“Don’t lie to your mother, Tony,” his mum said cheerfully. “You did _not_ sound like you were saying goodbye to ‘someone you chat with sometimes’. Is she pretty?”

“Aziraphale is —” _a man. I’m bi. You **know** I’m bi, you were practically planning my wedding to my last boyfriend, but it’s like you assume I’ll settle down with a woman in the end..._ — “...pretty. Yeah. Really... _really_ pretty.”

“Bring her to dinner, then! It’s been so long since I’ve gotten to meet one of your dates. What happened to that last one? Grace, was it?”

Crowley shrugged. “Didn’t work out.” He’d already been pretty sure she hadn’t been the one, but then they’d had the conversation about why Crowley never wanted to do anything past kissing, and that’d been the end of it. “I, uh, look, Aziraphale’s busy, runs a bookshop, lot of work in a bookshop...”

“Anthony Jeremiah Crowley,” she interrupted, and Crowley snorted at the choice of middle name. “You and your Aziraphale pick any night in the next month, and I will have a wonderful dinner ready for the both of you.”

“But —”

“Good, that’s settled. Did you get the package Dierdre sent you? Your godson apparently wrote a book about a dinosaur on a spaceship, and insisted you get a copy...”

* * *

Aziraphale walked back to the shop, somehow managing to not run into any other pedestrians despite his head being very much in the clouds.

He should invite Crowley back to the shop sometime. Or — no, he shouldn’t, not really, because he would be doing it under false pretenses, asking him to visit as a friend when really he wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in the man’s arms and never let go. He _wanted_ to invite Crowley back to the shop sometime.

“Foolish,” he murmured as he locked the door behind himself. He patted his own belly, large and round and exactly right as it was, even if it left him built not for love but for solitude. “We’re a bit too much for someone like him, aren’t we?”

He ran his scones and coffee up to the flat, then mumbled his way back down the stairs again, looking for the book he’d obviously left... ah, in the office. Yes. Up the stairs again, and he was all set to enjoy his repast.

The book went unread, though, and the coffee cold. He found himself looking at not much of anything, plump fingers drumming on the kitchen table.

He _could_ invite Crowley to the shop. They could relax in the back room and talk. Crowley knew a bit about wine, and Aziraphale had some bottles that were good but not ostentatious. Surely one of those would be appropriate for a couple of friends to split.

The problem with being built for solitude was that you rather forgot how social activities actually _worked_.

“Bother,” he remarked to the silent kitchen. Then he ate his scones and went downstairs to reopen the shop.

Days passed without him seeing Crowley, which was perfectly normal. Sooner or later their paths always crossed again; for instance, while Aziraphale was waiting for his drink, and a sudden presence slid up beside him.

“Good morning.”

Aziraphale felt himself already smiling at the sound of that voice. He would look up and over, and there would be Crowley, handsome as ever behind the eternal sunglasses...

Oh. Still handsome, yes. But the lines of his face seemed more weary, today. His mouth angled downward, jaw tense.

“Crowley,” he exclaimed, ignoring the niceties of a greeting. “Are you quite all right?”

That got him a tiny smile, at least. “Look that bad, do I?” Crowley straightened his glasses. “Late night. Several late nights. Nothing wrong, no worries.”

He seemed jittery, though, jaw still working. He shuffled awkwardly a half-step closer, then abruptly backed away.

“So how’ve you been?” He seemed to look around the cafe, not meeting Aziraphale’s eyes with the dark lenses. “How’s the, um. Shop. Have you, uh.”

“Nothing interesting to report, really.” Aziraphale struggled against an immense urge to put a hand on Crowley’s arm. “Really, _are_ you all right? I know we aren’t... aren’t precisely _close_ , but if you need a sympathetic ear...”

Crowley laughed at that. Just a quick sound, without much in the way of humor in it. “Everything’s fine, really.” His cheeks went lightly pink. “Just. My mum’s been at me to stop by for dinner.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale frowned, trying to parse out why that might cause this sort of distress. “Are the two of you... not on good terms?”

“No, no, ‘s not that, it’s just —”

Crowley seemed to bite back the rest of the sentence. His blush had deepened, now. When the barista called Aziraphale’s name, he startled.

Aziraphale came to a decision. “Wait right here, please. I’ll just get that, and then we can sit down and talk. Yes? Have you ordered?”

A silent shake of the head. Which meant Crowley had walked in and gone straight to Aziraphale’s side, and that was certainly very interesting, but he would think about it later. “Then we’ll get you something, too, and then sit down. And you can tell me what’s on your mind. All right?”

Crowley nodded slightly. “Yeah. All — all right.”

Aziraphale kept close by as Crowley ordered, as he waited at the end of the counter. Something had to be deeply troubling him, for him to act like this. It would be nice to be able to help.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley suggests his very brilliant "I get to visit my mum and not have some eligible young lady thrown at me, you get a nice homecooked meal" plan to Aziraphale. Aziraphale has reactions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter-level warning notes:**
> 
>   * The word "fat" is used in a **slightly-negative** -to-positive context
>   * There is some mild internalized fatphobia, and a brief reference to fatphobic interactions, without those interactions actually happening in the text. 
>     * Aziraphale has dealt with a lot of crap in his life, and he doesn't have any expectations for that crap ending any time soon. This makes him assume reactions/viewpoints from people that they... don't necessarily have. (Especially people named "Anthony J Crowley". Aziraphale definitely is misreading such people's views of him.)
> 


The idea was stupid, and it was selfish, and for the first two days Crowley was absolutely not going to do it.

His mum called again on the third day. “Do you think Aziraphale would prefer honey-glazed salmon, or roasted chicken?”

“Mum, I’m not —” Crowley scrubbed a hand down his face. “Aziraphale isn’t —”

A thoughtful noise floated down the line. “The chicken is probably a safer bet. Everyone likes chicken. ...except vegetarians, I suppose.”

That got a laugh out of him, anyway. “Look, mum, I’m glad to come home and eat your chicken. Only, Aziraphale’s not...”

The idea was still stupid, and still selfish. Didn’t mean it was getting any less tempting.

“Never mind. I’ll, uh, take a look at my schedule. Our schedules. Okay?”

Which was the first step to giving in to the idea. And by the time he and Aziraphale ran into each other again, he’d been worrying it over for days, and then he’d had to pull a couple all-nighters for work, and he was just... really not firing on all cylinders.

“It’s stupid,” he mumbled into the table. “I should just explain to her, except then there’ll be some, some _niece_ or something, and I’m sure she’ll be perfectly nice but that’s not the _point_...”

Aziraphale peered at him from across the table. His hands on his coffee cup were very round and very fat and Crowley couldn’t look at them too long or else he’d go and do something awful like hold them. “I’m afraid I’m... not following at all. Could you back up a bit?”

“D’you remember the last time we ran into each other, and I got a phone call just as you were leaving?” Crowley watched blearily for a nod, then continued. “Was my mum. Calling to invite me home for dinner, only she always has some perfectly nice young lady there for me to meet, y’see?”

Aziraphale blinked mildly. “Ah. Yes, I believe I’m following so far...”

“Only she heard me saying goodbye to you, and I guess she misunderstood, so she thinks. Um.”

Crowley felt his face go hot. Aziraphale still looked at him, patiently waiting for the rest of it, no sign that he had any idea that Crowley was about to say...

“She thinks we’re. Dating?”

Aziraphale barely reacted, and Crowley wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He sat up even straighter, one eyebrow raised. “Well. It seems as though that should be an easy enough — misconception, to clear up.”

“But the _niece_ ,” Crowley moaned into his hands. “Or the neighbor’s daughter or the mailman’s cousin or whatever. I just... I want one trip home without having to make small talk with some stranger.”

Utter silence from the other side of the table for a moment.

“That does seem rather a quandary.”

Something in Aziraphale’s voice made Crowley look up. Or maybe more what wasn’t in his voice — no disinterest, no scorn, no sense of _Yep, that’s certainly a problem you’ve gotten yourself into, hope it works out for you_.

Aziraphale was gazing quietly back across the table at him, like he cared. Like he’d maybe help if he could.

And, well. Not firing on all cylinders. So.

“Come with me?”

 _That_ got a reaction out of Aziraphale. He jolted like he’d been stuck, pretty face going slack with shock. “I beg your pardon?”

Crowley spun his coffee until it almost toppled over, and then he stopped spinning it. “Just — just cover for me. You get a free meal, I get to not go through mum’s bloody _heteronormative machinations_.”

Aziraphale’s eyes were still wide, but he did laugh a little at that.

“We don’t — you don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. Wouldn’t have to. Um.” His face was very rudely trying to set itself on fire. “Be _romantic_ , or anything. Just pretend you like talking to me, that should be enough.”

“Of _course_ I like talking to you, you ridiculous —” Aziraphale bit his lips very firmly together. “You are asking me to pretend to be your beau in front of your mother.”

Crowley leaned his head on the table. “Son of the year award, right?”

“Yes, yes, it’s a cruel deception, and no doubt she’ll never forgive you your wickedness. Only, Crowley.” Aziraphale leaned forward, clasping his hands and looking very seriously over them. “Surely you must know someone else who would be more — more _suitable_ for this.”

“She knows your name, though.” Then Crowley picked up on the end of the sentence. “Wait. What makes you not ‘suitable’?” Fuck. He’d thought sure he still had a chance, all the pretend dating nonsense aside, but — “You’re seeing someone for real? Because yeah, no, I’d never ask you to do this if —”

Something twisted across Aziraphale’s face, so quickly that Crowley couldn’t begin to put a name to it. It hurt to watch, though. The laugh that came out of Aziraphale’s mouth sounded like the mystery expression, but in audible form.

“No,” Aziraphale said. “I am not seeing anyone.”

He brought his laced fingers up to his pretty double chin. “My unsuitability for the task is more, ah — aesthetic.”

Crowley tilted his head.

“No one would ever believe that you’d be dating _me_.” Tone light. A little shrug. “Not when I look like this.”

“Look like...” Crowley gave Aziraphale a careful once-over from behind the sunglasses. He looked the same as ever, sweet round face and pale cloud of hair and belly pressing softly against a very comfy-looking jumper. Like the prettiest person Crowley had seen in ages. Maybe ever.

“I’m unattractive, Crowley.”

Aziraphale took a sip of his coffee, which thankfully distracted him from seeing Crowley’s jaw drop through the core of the fucking earth.

“Your ruse needs a believable partner to work, I think. And that simply is not me.”

He kept looking down at his coffee, like he was embarrassed to look up. Like maybe he actually believed what he’d just said. Unattractive. Unattractive, oh, sure, and Crowley was an aardvark. And coffee wasn’t delicious. And ducklings weren’t bloody _cute_. 

Crowley opened his mouth, and realized only barely in time that what he’d been about to say was something like “You’re right, forget the whole idea, only come with me anyway as my _real_ boyfriend because I would _kill_ to date you because you’re brilliant and funny and _gorgeous_...”

Nope. No no nope. He wasn’t so whacked out on lack of sleep to not know what a bad idea that was.

“Think about it, okay? I could just... really use this. This. Favor from a friend, like.”

Aziraphale’s eyes softened. “All right. I will... will think about it.”

* * *

That evening, tucked away upstairs of the shop for the night, Aziraphale sipped at his chamomile and, as promised, thought about it.

It was so close to being precisely what he wanted.

_I could take your hand, if we were pretending. I could kiss you and maybe you would kiss me back. You could hold me. Could touch all the parts of me that I’m supposed to hate, that I have decided to love. Could tell me that you love them, too._

_I could pretend like I believed you._

But none of it would be real. None of it would be real, and no one would believe it. Crowley was stunningly handsome, with those cheekbones and that smile and that _hair_ , falling to his slim shoulders in waves of fire. People like him weren’t attracted to fat little booksellers whose own hair and manner of dress had been getting them the occasional senior discount since they were barely thirty-five. Aziraphale could just imagine Crowley’s mother’s reaction — the raised eyebrow, probably just like Crowley’s. The polite disbelief. With any luck she’d pull Crowley aside in private to scold him for the obvious deception, rather than simply call it out with Aziraphale right there...

Crowley had plainly not thought this through at all.

He’d asked as a friend, though, and Aziraphale wanted very much to be that. He’d never be anything else to the man, but friendship was its own precious gift. Crowley was extending it. Aziraphale was not sure he could resist it.

He thought about it through evenings alone in the flat, and days selling as little as he could get away with down in the shop. He thought about it while he took his walks around Soho, or went out to the theatre, or fed the very cute ducklings in the park. He thought about it at the cafe, where he hoped and yet feared to see Crowley again.

It was nearly a week before he saw the familiar sunglasses turn toward him across a busy street. Funny, how they’d managed to never run into each other away from the cafe before. Almost before Aziraphale knew it, though, they were standing before each other, right outside of Golden Square. The book he’d been planning to sit and read felt awkward in his hands.

“Hey.” Crowley shifted the messenger bag over his shoulder, mouth curving in a lopsided grin. “Aziraphale. Hi.”

“You won’t want to be too affectionate,” Aziraphale blurted out. “For your ruse. I understand.”

Crowley tilted his head. “My ru... oh. Oh.”

A look passed over the visible part of his face, mild shock, perhaps, at that being Aziraphale’s greeting — or at the terrible choice of wording, because it made it all too obvious that _Aziraphale_ would want to be affectionate, would in fact like that very, very much —

“As a friend,” he said quickly, “as your friend, I will do you this favor. You really do deserve a visit home without... machinations.”

The smile that bloomed across Crowley’s face was a wondrous thing. “You will. You’re okay with pretending to be... be my...”

Aziraphale looked around. The pavement was crowded, at this hour, and hardly a place to have this conversation. “I suppose we’ll have to work out those — details — how we refer to each other, where we met...”

“Cafe.” Crowley lowered his head. “True, isn’t it? Saw you walk up just as I was leaving. Fell for you right there.”

He colored as he said it, which was only natural. Anyone passing could hear him, and wouldn’t realize it was all false. They’d probably think he had something wrong with him, to have any interest in someone like Aziraphale. Poor Crowley.

Poor Crowley’s mother, to have to see her child reduced to this.

Oh, this was an awful idea after all —

“Lunch,” Crowley said. He shifted the bag on his shoulder again. “I mean. If you haven’t eaten, we could. Could talk it out over lunch.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to refuse, to call the whole thing off.

“My treat.”

Hopeful eyebrows arched over the dark glasses, and Aziraphale felt his will ebb away.

“All right.”

The smile Crowley turned on him then was practically blinding, and Aziraphale couldn’t understand how he _didn’t_ already have an actual partner. He could have anyone, surely _anyone_ he might care for, with a wit so charming, with a smile so divine. He should be taking someone he loved to meet his mother. Not Aziraphale. Not this utter farce.

“Ever been to the pelmeni place a couple blocks over? No? Bet you’ll love it. C’mon.”

Long legs curtailed their stride, letting Aziraphale keep up easily. Crowley looked very pleased with himself as he led the way. Well, he would get a visit home on his own terms, and he was about to have lunch with a — a friend. It did seem pleasing, viewed like that.

“Mind the step. Bit dark inside, too.”

It was positively stygian, compared to the sunny afternoon outside, but Aziraphale refrained from saying anything. Crowley made his way across the tiny space to the counter easily enough, and Aziraphale stumbled along behind.

“Basically two things on the menu, and both are dumplings. You want to pick a table while I order? And the drinks are in the cooler over there, grab your favorite.”

Aziraphale blinked in that direction. "Ah. Yes. I’ll take a sparkling water, and should I get you...?”

“Just a Coke. Be with you soon’s I finish here.”

Crowley smiled down at him, open and cheerful.

And then he removed his sunglasses.

Aziraphale had the briefest impression of dark eyes, smiling no less than Crowley’s mouth had been... set within the finely-carved planes of Crowley’s face, deep and elegant and lovely...

“Yes,” he said. “Drinks.”

He made their selections, then dropped at the first table he saw. The chairs, fortunately, were very sturdy.

By the time Crowley slid in across from him, Aziraphale’s eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting. He could clearly see _Crowley’s_ eyes, dark brown and beautiful. Magnificent. He’d thought him handsome before, but oh, he’d never understood the meaning of the word until now. With the whole of Crowley’s face unmasked before him at last, it was like looking at the statue of a god come to life. A grinning Adonis, tapping one finger on the table.

“You awake in there? At least blink so I know you can hear me.”

“Y-yes.” Aziraphale felt his face warm. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“Potato,” Crowley said, pointing to one heaping basket of dumplings, sprinkled with something unidentifiable. “Beef in this one. Got some cups of sauce, and sour cream, but we can get more.”

He hesitated then. “Guess this maybe isn’t, isn’t as fancy as you usually go in for...”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “My dear fellow, I have frequented any number of hole-in-the-wall eateries in my time. It’s the quality of the food which matters, not the number of forks in the place settings.”

“Which reminds me.” Crowley tossed him a paper napkin wrapped around a plastic knife and fork. “Your silverware.”

That grin was devastating when it shone from those eyes. Aziraphale wondered whether Crowley would notice if he simply stopped breathing.

For the moment, Crowley just leaned on his elbows, still favoring him with an easy grin. “Go on, then. You don’t like it, we’ll go somewhere else. Anywhere you want.”

“I’m sure there’s no need for that.” Aziraphale nudged a few pelmeni onto his own plate, then speared one carefully along with a small glob of sour cream. “They do _smell_ good...”

Which they did, rich and savory, and the delicately earthy aroma of potato spiraling up from the dumpling on his fork. He raised it to his mouth, blowing gently on it before giving it a try.

Soft, well-made dough gave way as he bit down, and then he could taste the filling; only simple whipped potato, but the combination with the dough and sour cream and — oh, he realized, closing his eyes, that was curry powder on top — which really had no business complementing the other flavors this well, all rolling together on his tongue, and he couldn’t help a delighted little sound at the back of his throat...

Aziraphale opened his eyes, and Crowley was _staring_ at him.

He’d been leaning forward before, arms crossed on the table, smiling pleasantly enough. Now, though, he seemed practically on the edge of losing his balance. He hunched forward over hands that were tense and still.

His eyes were focused on Aziraphale, gaze somehow both intense and soft. Oddly vulnerable, especially with the way his eyebrows drew in. His mouth was not quite open.

Crowley let out a sudden breath which he had, apparently, been holding, and his well-formed lips curled up in a faint smile.

“Good?” His voice low. Rough, somehow. And vulnerable, again, as though he needed Aziraphale’s approval. As though something important hung on it.

Aziraphale must have been making an absolute spectacle of himself, to be stared at so. He felt a miserable flush starting in his cheeks. “It’s delicious,” he admitted, waiting for the sort of comments that always followed anyone taking notice of him eating. Crowley was his friend, there wouldn’t be outright _cruelty_ , but there would likely be unasked-for advice, assumptions about his habits, patronizing concern...

Crowley sighed again, softer this time. The tension melted into nothing. “Good. Glad.” His eyes flicked down for just a moment, then settled on Aziraphale’s again. “Hoped you’d like it.”

The rest, all the part which Aziraphale was so tired of... didn’t come.

“I do. Thank you.” Aziraphale hesitated before scooping up one of the beef pelmeni. Some of that peculiar stiffness came back into Crowley’s shoulders, into his jutting chin, but it vanished again when Aziraphale smiled at the taste of this second mouthful. “This was an excellent choice for lunch.”

Crowley’s voice, when he spoke next, was gentler than before. “First lunch we’ve ever eaten together,” he said, mouth quirking upward. “Our first date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~dangit i really want to go downtown to Paul's Pelmeni now~~
> 
> Next chapter is where the ridiculously obvious pining I have been warning about really gets going. Buckle in!
> 
> Also -- to all my fellow fat people -- I know it can really really feel a lot of the time like the entire world has no respect for our bodies, and for us as the humans who live in those bodies. Sometimes the entire world is just wrong, is all. Your body's worth is 100% independent of its size, and so is _your_ worth, with no size or shape limits whatsoever. If you like, please accept some gentle good-job-body-you-are-doing-your-best thoughts from me. <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale start working out the details of their pretend relationship. And practicing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter-level warning note:** The word "fat" is used in a **slightly-negative** -to-positive context. The slightly-negative usage is from Aziraphale, in the context of his being used to being the target of fatphobia from others. I promise that he is going to realize, before we are done with this story, just how safe he is from ever having to worry about that with Crowley.
> 
> Judging from comments thus far, I think people thought we were already in the Ridiculous Obvious Mutual Pining I warned about. That was nothing. This is where it starts, and it's not stopping until the end, I'm pretty sure. I'm not a big emoticon-face user other than my beloved Look Of Disapproval, but I think this calls for this face, maybe: >:3c

Crowley watched Aziraphale’s eyes go wide. Realized what he’d said, and wondered if it was possible to literally die from self-applied foot in mouth.

“I mean. We have to say our first date was somewhere, right? Might as well pick here. For the story.”

Aziraphale looked a little calmer. “Your ruse.”

“Sure.” Crowley shoved a couple of dumplings into his own mouth to shut himself up for a minute.

“Well, this should be a suitable place to discuss it. Very, ah — private.”

Four tables including theirs, crammed along one side of a dim, narrow space. No other customers but them, and the woman behind the counter had already disappeared into the back again. “Most of their business is late-night takeaway. I don’t think most people like the atmosphere.” Crowley tapped the sunglasses now tucked into his shirt collar. “Me ‘n my eyes like it fine, though. Not too bright.”

Aziraphale’s eyes — beautiful, deep enough to drown in, with their pupils wide in the gloom — looked up at him with a tiny spark of mirth. “So the glasses aren’t merely for fashion, then? They do go well with the rest of your... rather dashing style.”

Dashing. Crowley had never been called dashing before, and if he’d ever bothered to think about it, he probably would’ve thought it was a stupid thing to call someone. But he loved the sound of it in Aziraphale’s mouth. _Dashing_.

“They can be both,” he mumbled. “Fashionable and, nnh, practical.”

Aziraphale smiled, sending Crowley’s single brain cell into hiding just in time for his fool mouth to open again.

“Could we be boyfriends?”

That look of shock again, fucking hell, Crowley really needed to give some context on these things — “What we call each other. As a, a label, anyway. Not like a pet name.” He poked at his food. “Boyfriend and boyfriend.”

“Oh, good Lord,” Aziraphale replied, sounding dazed. “Pet names. I suppose that — that as boyfriends, we’d have those for each other, wouldn’t we.”

“As boyfriends. Yep. Yup.”

Bottomless blue eyes flickered toward him, away, back again. “I’m afraid I... I’m not very creative about such things. Well, not that I’ve had the opportunity, you know, it’s been a... a very, very long time since I was in — a relationship —” His pudgy hand on the table tightened, then spread out like a pale starfish. “Dear.”

Crowley’s chest boomed hollowly.

“Darling. If... if those are all right?”

“Y-yeah,” Crowley said. “They’re. They’re fine.” _They’re perfect. You’re perfect. Probably a good thing you don’t actually mean ‘em, because I think I’d die on the spot if you did._

Aziraphale just looked at him, then. As if he expected something from him, or...

“Oh. Guess I could call you, uh. ‘Sweetie.’” He made a face. “No. ‘Babe’?”

_Aziraphale_ made a face at that one, which startled Crowley into a laugh. And then Aziraphale was laughing too, a sparkling, golden sound that Crowley would buy by the bottle if he could.

“Okay, not that one, then.” Still laughing, as he looked across at Aziraphale. Gorgeous, so soft and fat and _perfect_ , with those bright eyes and that white hair puffing around his face like a cloud... catching the light even in here, like a halo...

The laugh saw itself quietly out. Crowley felt very still, now. Very, very sure of the next word he was going to say.

“Angel.”

Two syllables, slotting into place in his heart. And that didn’t get him another silly face, no. Aziraphale only looked at him silently, eyes still shining. Shining like his halo.

“Angel,” Crowley said again.

Aziraphale nodded, slow and almost dreamlike. “Yes. Oh, I would li —”

The hand on the table flinched.

“That would be acceptable. Yes.”

They weren’t really boyfriends, not really on their first date. So it’d be weird to take that clenching hand. Weird to hold it, smooth out the fingers, rub a thumb over the little divots of Aziraphale’s knuckles.

Crowley shoved another couple of pelmeni into his mouth.

“We met at the cafe, then. Still back in mid-January?”

“You remembered,” Crowley grinned, before he could stop himself.

Aziraphale looked off into the distance and cleared his throat. “Yes, well. You weren’t wearing a _coat_. That sort of foolishness sticks with one.”

“Guess you’ll be the type to fuss over me a lot.” The idea made something warm bubble up inside him. “Good to know.”

“And,” Aziraphale said, “our... our first date was here... when would that have been?”

“That day.” He admitted it again, just like he had on the pavement, because it was fine, Aziraphale would never suspect, it was all part of the _ruse_... “Fell for you the first instant, didn’t I? Course I asked you out right there. Not like I was — was scared.”

“Oh, that’s _much_ too fast, Crowley.”

Aziraphale sounded like he would have been clutching pearls if he’d been wearing them. His pretty eyes were almost reproachful. Like he was invested in Crowley’s fictional wooing of him. Which was adorable, even if it did make Crowley feel a little guilty. Aziraphale deserved exactly what he wanted from a relationship, and if that was something slow and cautious...

“Wuh, okay. We talked for a while, and then I asked you out around, uh.”

“Valentine’s Day,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley could swear there was a little quiver in his voice. “It would have been very romantic, don’t you think, surrounded by — by all those symbols of love — and then you could have offered me a single rose...”

God. Aziraphale was an incredible actor. He even almost had Crowley believing him. Going sort of misty, smiling at Crowley but not really seeing him. Seeing the imaginary Crowley, probably, the one who’d been brave enough to bring a rose to an imaginary Aziraphale who’d been interested in accepting.

“I’ve never been given flowers,” Aziraphale sighed, still looking lost in their fictional past.

Something ached in Crowley’s chest, something that had him twisting his lips together to stop his words. Aziraphale had said he hadn’t been in a relationship in a long time. In a very, very long time. And he’d said he wasn’t attractive, and he’d said no one — no one had ever brought him flowers. At all.

Something was horribly wrong with the universe, if Aziraphale hadn’t been loved every single moment of his entire adult life. Hadn’t always had someone to hold him, to stroke his hair and plant a kiss on his forehead and tell him he was beautiful. Shouldn’t have been a single day he’d had to go without. Sounded like there’d been maybe a lot of days like that, though. Wrong. Horribly, disastrously wrong.

_I’ll buy you a dozen red roses right now_ , Crowley wanted to say. _A hundred. Roses every day as long as you live. I’ve had a thing for you since day one, and I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you by this point, but if I’m not there yet then it can’t be far off, because I’m always so happy just to be around you, let alone to get to make you smile..._

“Rose, then. Single red rose. And I asked you to lunch.”

“And you asked me to lunch.” Aziraphale nibbled on another pelmeni, still smiling a little. “We hit it off immediately, and we’ve been. Well. Together ever since.”

Lucky imaginary Crowley. “Yeah.”

Neither of them spoke for a bit, then. Crowley munched through some of his share of the pelmeni, then decided he wasn’t really hungry for any more. Aziraphale, meanwhile, approached his with the same fussy care he just seemed to always pay his food, delicate bites and frequent dabbings with his napkin. And the occasional little smile, or pleased hum, as he ate.

Crowley really liked that little smile. Really liked hearing that hum. When Aziraphale took another small helping from the basket of potato dumplings, technically cutting into Crowley’s half, he did absolutely nothing to stop him.

Aziraphale bit into what was theoretically Crowley’s pelmeni, and his lovely eyes fluttered shut for just a second, and Crowley felt something inside himself fill with a deep satisfaction no food could ever provide.

_Pretty angel_ , he would probably say now. If they were really dating. Then he’d reach across the table, and he’d hold —

“Um. We should probably work out, er.” Crowley couldn’t quite make himself meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “Uh. Touching?”

Aziraphale stared at him without answering.

“If you don’t want to at all that’s fine,” Crowley added, all the words coming out in a rush. “Fine. No — no problem at all, why would there be. We don’t have to —”

“Oh, but we should,” Aziraphale interrupted. “That is — it would be more believable, would it not? We wouldn’t want your mother thinking we were — well — on the outs, as it were.”

Crowley looked down at Aziraphale’s hand on the table again. “Yeah. No, we wouldn’t want that.”

“No.”

The silence piled up between them, thick and stifling, until Aziraphale uttered a little sigh. “I suspect your boundaries will be rather more a concern than mine, since you’ll be... touching...” He gestured vaguely toward himself. “I’m aware that it won’t be pleasant —”

Crowley didn’t even think, when Aziraphale’s hand settled back on the table. His own hand just darted out and took it.

Aziraphale gasped.

He didn’t yank his hand back, though. He jumped, and his blue eyes were locked on Crowley’s heated face. Still, his round fingers nestled against Crowley’s, even softer than they’d looked. Warmer, too.

“I don’t — don’t know why you think I’d have a problem with, with _basic physical contact_ , okay.” Crowley resolutely did not stroke his thumb against that perfect hand. “Wouldn’t have asked you to do this if I hated you that much.”

Aziraphale’s lips parted, though he didn’t say anything.

“Shouldn’t have asked, though. Making you sit there and, and say that this would be _unpleasant_. Feels like giving you an excuse to just insult yourself.”

“ _You_ won’t think it’s pleasant, Crowley. That’s all.”

Crowley got it, finally, when Aziraphale glanced down. Not at their hands, or at the table — nope, his gaze pointed almost straight down for a second. And his mouth tightened.

“Oh. You figure I’ll have a problem with your...” Crowley stopped. He didn’t want to tiptoe around what wasn’t even a problem at all, but he didn’t want to blurt out something hurtful, either. Didn’t want to just come out and say it before Aziraphale could.

“As I said to begin with, I’m really not aesthetically suited to this.” One eyebrow raised itself as he looked Crowley square in the face. “You will be bringing home a fat man to your mother, and introducing him as your boyfriend. Which you shouldn’t have to do — I truly wish you’d been able to find anyone else to do this favor for you — but you don’t have to _touch_ the fat man in question any more than absolutely necessary.”

Aziraphale’s eyes went firm, then. He raised his head.

“Understand, I’m not looking for pity. I very much like myself just as I am. But I also realize that I am alone in that regard.”

Crowley very, very distinctly felt his heart break.

“Wuh — well, fuck that, then.” He wished he could wipe his eyes without Aziraphale noticing. Suspected his hand would come away damp. “If — if we’re going with _my_ boundaries, then we’re holding hands. Right?”

“That would be fine,” Aziraphale said quietly.

“Arms too. Might — might touch your arm, or maybe you grab mine, and nobody says boo, because that’s what boyfriends _do_ , okay.”

Aziraphale nodded. “Which should be enough, I think, for the illusion —”

“Nope, hang on,” Crowley replied, and part of him was screaming that this was a bad idea, but it just hurt, realizing that Aziraphale probably thought that way all the time, probably had for _years_. And Crowley couldn’t tell him the truth, not without being fucking weird. Not without almost certainly driving Aziraphale away. He couldn’t just say _I love you **exactly** as you are, every single fat inch of you, and I **dare** you to find me a part of you that I wouldn’t think was **beautiful**_ — but he could do something, dammit. Something probably almost as stupid and weird, but still —

He let go of Aziraphale’s hand. Stood up just long enough to drag his chair around to the next side of the table — not across from Aziraphale any more, but directly on his left. Then he plopped back down again. Elbows on his knees, slouching forward, looking directly into Aziraphale’s very surprised, very pretty face.

“So touching arms. Sure. How about hugs? Doesn’t have to be, be romantic, doesn’t have to be meant romantic. Mates hug each other all the time, yeah? Maybe you don’t like ‘em, that’s fine, but if you don’t dislike them we can add to the list.” He remembered to stop for a breath.

“Crowley, why are you...” Aziraphale rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “No. No, I would not have a problem with... with being embraced.”

Crowley shifted forward and wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s shoulders. Just held there a moment, not leaning against his shining curls or his pillowed shoulder.

His lungs pulled in a long, slow breath without his say-so. Of fucking course Aziraphale would even _smell_ incredible.

The round body was stiff against his chest for the first few seconds, but then it relented, a little. One hand patted Crowley’s back, awkwardly, before resting against it and rubbing somewhat less awkwardly.

“I suppose I’m a bit out of practice,” Aziraphale murmured, the sound thrumming through Crowley’s heart. “Terribly sorry.”

Crowley grinned and gave one experimental squeeze. The way Aziraphale relaxed against him then, a tiny sigh whispering on the edge of hearing, made him want to fucking dance. “Well, that — that just means we have to do it more, yeah? Can’t fool my mum with fakey hugs.”

“I suppose not.” Aziraphale leaned his chin on Crowley’s shoulder, just a little, and Crowley closed his eyes and willed himself to not _actually_ jump up and dance. “Thank you. Thank you for being willing to...”

“No,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale drew back, not quite out of the circle of Crowley’s arms —

_Angel, you’re in my **arms** , angel, please never ever leave —_

— but enough for his own hand to fall from Crowley’s back. He rested it on Crowley’s arm, instead, right below the elbow, not even seeming to notice he was doing it.

“But I should thank you for —”

“Not made of poison, Aziraphale, you’re just fat.” Crowley tried to ignore the tiny flinch in Aziraphale’s eyes at the word. “Nothing wrong with, with just giving you a bloody hug. Do it again if you asked. Any time you asked.”

_Please ask._

Aziraphale didn’t ask. He bit his lip, nodding, not saying anything.

It was the lip bite. Distracting him, making him all too aware of that delicate mouth, and how very, very much he wanted to —

“Guess you wouldn’t want to kiss,” his voice said on its own. “Too far probably, yeah? For the. The ruse?”

Aziraphale blushed, deep pink and gorgeous. A shocked little laugh shimmered out of his throat. “Good Lord,” he quavered, “that — I would be _very_ out of practice for that —”

“Well.” Crowley tilted his head, gaze shifting between Aziraphale’s eyes and Aziraphale’s mouth. “We could get in some practice. If you wanted.”

His arms tightened around Aziraphale, and Aziraphale didn’t resist being drawn closer.

“Yes,” he breathed. “I suppose we could.”

Crowley paused just before it was too late. Was that — was that _consent_ , they weren’t really dating but these things were still important, by this point he had to have pushed this thing _way_ too far —

Aziraphale kissed him. Clumsily, but with no hesitation and with such sweetness that Crowley had no choice but to kiss him right back.

It lasted maybe five seconds. Then Aziraphale pulled back again, suddenly, face scarlet as his wide eyes roamed Crowley’s face. Maybe searching for something. Nothing to find, though, except whatever it might look like for Crowley to fight down the biggest smile any human face had ever worn.

The blush didn’t calm down, but at least Aziraphale’s eyes did. Maybe he’d seen what he wanted. Hadn’t seen what he’d feared. 

“You didn’t... ah. With your tongue.” He grimaced. “I’d rather you didn’t, to be honest, I don’t know why people _do_ that...”

Crowley gaped, almost forgetting every damned thing that had happened in the last five minutes, he was so surprised to hear someone else say it. “I never have either! Just, just, what, lick another person’s fillings?”

Aziraphale giggled. “Very romantic, apparently, shared dental hygiene...”

“Oh, that’s disgusting.” Crowley was laughing too. Aziraphale was still in his arms, so _soft_ and so _giggly_ and Crowley wanted nothing but this forever. Nothing else.

Which would be something he’d have to talk about, if this were a real relationship. But it was all pretend. Aziraphale didn’t need to know that Crowley was ace.

Right now, he was starting to blush again, the color just creeping back into his round cheeks. “I imagine that that was — not much of a showing, on my part. Not something that would convince your mother that we... we make a habit of it at all.”

Crowley shrugged. The movement just happened to make his arms go even more tightly around Aziraphale’s shoulders, one of his hands happening to slide up into Aziraphale’s hair. “Maybe not. Dunno.”

“Shall we practice again?”

“For the ruse,” Crowley said against his lips.

Aziraphale hummed agreement, and then made a different humming sound, and then didn’t say anything more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: more practicing!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale is really not sure all that... practicing... actually happened. And all these nice things Crowley is saying to him are definitely for the ruse. Crowley is definitely a remarkable actor. Definitely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter-level warning note:** The word "fat" is used in a neutral context. There is also some internalized fatphobia, and a mention of a past fatphobic statement from someone who will not appear in the story. I promise the person who originally made the statement has had a very long series of very bad days ever since.

The bookshop door closed with a quiet thud.

Aziraphale leaned back against it, staring around at the shelves, the well-swept floor, the ceiling with the flat and roof and sky beyond.

His lips still felt warm from Crowley’s kisses.

His middle felt warm, too, a steady sort of glow in his trembling chest, in the depths of his broad round belly. This day could not possibly have happened. It was still the morning, perhaps, and he was just about to open for the day, mind still whirling with dreams from last night. Dreams where he’d gone out intending to sit in the park and read, alone, only to end up sitting across a table from Crowley — and then very much closer to Crowley — where Crowley had embraced him with easy affection, with no reluctance at all, and then had —

He checked his pocket watch. Practically three PM. It had happened, then; he had run into Crowley, and they had gone to lunch. A discussion of their planned deception had led to their practicing some of the actions they might need to undertake for that deception to be successful.

They’d practiced kissing four times. Might have done a fifth, if the woman working at the restaurant hadn’t seemed close to evicting them from the premises. And Crowley had hugged him again when they’d parted on the sidewalk.

“Not — not proper practice if you don’t hug back,” he’d said, slender arms warm on Aziraphale’s shoulders. “Imagine what my mum would think.”

Aziraphale had put his own arms around Crowley, his book held awkwardly in one hand. Crowley had pressed _closer_ , breathing deeply and then letting it out again, the rise and fall of his chest a slow, soothing thing.

“Goodbye, Crowley,” Aziraphale had said.

The answer had come after a slight delay. “Bye, angel.”

Presumably Aziraphale had walked back to the shop after that, since he was here now. He simply couldn’t remember.

His shaking legs carried him to his office, where he put his book on the desk, unread. Then it seemed rather as though it might be good to sit down. After that he was out of ideas, though, so he resumed his earlier staring. The walls of his office, the clutter of his desk, the window that looked over the busy street — none seemed to hold any answers for him, although he was admittedly not even sure what the question was.

No. No, that was a lie; he knew full well what the question was. He just didn’t seem to be able to even form it properly. Could Crowley possibly — that was, might he be able to, someday —

Ask the sun to rise in the west, more likely. Doubt that the stars were fire, doubt that the earth did move — there had never been any doubt that Aziraphale would not be loved. Men had _tried_. There was simply too much of him for that.

“Ah,” he said aloud. “No, that’s the old thinking, isn’t it? Never quite leaves, I suppose.”

He rested his hands on top of his stomach, feeling the soft weight of it, of the body that moved him through the world day after day. It might not have been the body that other people thought he should have — not the sort others would respect, let alone be able to love — but it was his. It deserved to be just as it would, without judgement.

“And without all that nonsense about ‘I love you, but I’d rather you lose the gut’.” He gave himself a little pat. “Ridiculous, calling that love. We really are better off now we’re rid of _him_.”

It was hard to imagine Crowley saying something like that, he realized. Not even in his false role of boyfriend. Romantic partners, in Aziraphale’s experience, always wanted a little more — or, depending on the topic of conversation, a fair bit less — but Crowley...

Crowley was just his friend. That was all. There had been patronizingly concerned friends over the years, too, but not that many. Not having to touch his body probably made it easier to accept.

Although Crowley had certainly touched —

Aziraphale felt that glow in his belly again. It was all so foolish of him. Crowley was simply a fantastic actor, that was all. Highly motivated by the desire to not have an endless array of eligible women paraded before him, and that was something Aziraphale understood well enough. He’d been a bit better-looking as a younger man, and his parents had still held out hope of eventual grandchildren, for a while.

Which they wouldn’t have gotten even if Aziraphale had been interested in women, even if he had looked like — like Crowley. There were activities involved which Aziraphale was simply not going to engage in.

“Another conversation to not have again.” He gave the curve of his middle one last friendly pat, then moved to the stairs, thinking of a nice cup of tea and some light reading. “No one will expect us to do any of _that_ , thank goodness, so it won’t come up at all.”

The rest of the day passed quietly, even if he did not, as it turned out, have much luck focusing on his reading. At one point he looked up with a start.

“Good Lord,” he said aloud into the empty room. “We didn’t exchange our contact information.”

They’d certainly have to correct that before visiting Crowley’s mother. And pick a day for Crowley to drive them out there, for that matter.

Perhaps do a bit more practicing beforehand.

Aziraphale pressed a knuckle to his mouth, taking one very deep breath. This warm, glowing, fluttering sensation in his middle was just his foolishness again. He would have it under control by the next time he saw Crowley. Three or four days from now, perhaps a week... it was never much longer than that. Their schedules both seemed to be somewhat irregular, but things always lined up again eventually.

The next morning, he approached the cafe door not long before eleven. He pushed it open, the bell above starting its jingle...

“Angel!”

Aziraphale startled. He would know that voice anywhere, warm and delightful, just a little bit rough, only it shouldn’t be calling out to him like _that_ , it must be calling someone else —

Crowley waved frantically from his seat in a relatively dark corner. Glasses on, of course, but his face was pointed towards Aziraphale, and — and there was the nickname. The endearment.

Aziraphale joined him with only a mild fluttering sensation in his chest. “Crowley. Good morning.”

“Mornin’.” Every line of Crowley’s face seemed weighed down with exhaustion, but he still wore an oddly tender smile which did Aziraphale’s fluttering heart no favors. “Starting to wonder if you were coming in at all today.”

“I don’t — you haven’t been _waiting_ for me, have you...?” Aziraphale peered a little closer at him. “Oh my. You look as though you haven’t slept at all.”

Crowley’s eyebrow tilted up above a tired grin. “Oi. Well aware I’m a mess today, but there’s no need to rub it in.”

Which wasn’t what Aziraphale had meant to imply at all, of course — even with clear weariness stamped across his features, Crowley was almost impossibly handsome. His hair was swept back from his high forehead, though one errant lock lay soft against the hard line of his cheek. His strong nose cast a shadow on that side, away from the nearest light, and his mouth was twisted wryly, the lips firm yet gentle-looking... oh, and those lips could be very gentle indeed...

Aziraphale wrenched his eyes to where Crowley’s would be, protected behind the sunglasses. “We — we do need some level of... comfort, with the familiarity we’ll be acting out, I’ll admit. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to call me that here.”

“Huh?”

Quieter, so as to preserve Crowley’s dignity: “You called me ‘angel’. I’m very sure you won’t want to be doing that in public.”

Crowley tilted his head, still looking lost. Oh dear. When _had_ the man last gotten enough sleep...?

“People will _hear_ , Crowley. And if the intention is for things to be believable, then they’ll think you’re...”

He gestured to himself, eyebrows raised. Waited for understanding to dawn.

“Huh?” Crowley asked again. Then his expression sharpened. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, this, I thought I _told_ you I didn’t...”

One lithe hand darted across the table, stopping just short of Aziraphale’s. “You don’t, um.” Thin color seemed to touch Crowley’s cheeks. “ _You_ don’t mind if I do, uh — any of the stuff we...”

Aziraphale looked at the hand and wondered at the rest of that sentence. _Any of the stuff we talked about_ , certainly he didn’t mind.

 _Any of the stuff we did_... because they hadn’t _talked_ about Crowley’s hands buried in Aziraphale’s hair, Crowley’s body pressed to Aziraphale’s as though he wanted the contact. Crowley’s soft lips on his, opened just enough for their quivering breaths to mingle.

“I don’t mind.” His chest drew one sharp breath of its own accord. “You have — permission. For any of it.”

Crowley took his hand.

“Look, Aziraphale. I’m your friend.” Crowley’s eyebrows tightened for an instant. “Gonna tell you something maybe no one’s told you before, but you need to hear.”

Oh, no. He’d been so sure that Crowley would be above this — _beyond_ this — it would be the same tired discussion, the same magnanimous favor a dozen self-appointed heroes had done him before, bravely informing him that —

The hand on his tightened. “We live in a shit society.”

“I.” Aziraphale blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“We live in a shit society and it’s told you there’s something wrong with you and it’s _lying_. Okay? Lying to everyone else, too.” 

Crowley had both hands out now, one cradling Aziraphale’s hand and the other softly stroking it. Did he even realize? He hadn’t seemed to look down at all, had appeared to do it almost instinctively.

“So maybe you think you’re, you’re _not attractive_ or not believable b — boyfriend material. Or whatever.” Crowley leaned closer across the table, pulling Aziraphale’s hand too, weaving their fingers together. “And maybe a lot of other people think so too. Know what I don’t care about, though? What they think.”

Aziraphale found himself staring at their joined hands. “Oh,” he replied. His hand slotted very neatly into Crowley’s. It was an interesting thing, and one he’d never really wondered about before.

“Care what you think. Care what I think. And I think you’re —”

Crowley stilled, speech and motion and, seemingly, even his breathing. His slender fingers, so comfortably laced with Aziraphale’s much fatter ones, twitched once.

“Think you’ve just learned a shit lie,” he said at last. “Maybe dealt with some shit people. Fuck ‘em. You’re definitely, just — extremely good boyfriend material, okay. And I’ve got no problem with, with everyone on the _planet_ thinking we’re really dating. ‘Less it bothered you.”

If they... practiced, for the eventual performance in front of Crowley’s mother, in public... if they greeted each other here in Soho with endearments, with fond smiles, with hands held over tables or as they walked down the street...

...with tender fingers smoothed through hair, and tender kisses that would mime love with suitable conviction...

Well. It would make the whole thing that much more convincing when the time came, wouldn’t it?

Aziraphale felt the blush rising to his face before he could even open his mouth. “It doesn’t bother me.” His throat nearly closed around the next word. “Darling.”

“Right.” That answer had apparently been not expected, because Crowley’s mouth went slack for a moment. He brightened almost immediately, though, not dropping Aziraphale’s hand so much as releasing it onto the table. “So. My — my boyfriend probably wants coffee, yeah? Something to eat?”

“Yes, I — oh, no,” Aziraphale said, as Crowley rose, “there’s no need for you to —”

“Scones? Bagel, maybe?”

Narrow hips threaded between tables with ease. _Boyfriend material_ indeed, when only one of them here came even close to the standards of male beauty.

“The... a slice of the banana bread, I think, today.”

“Bread. Sure.”

Crowley paused by Aziraphale’s chair, perhaps noticing that Aziraphale was staring up at him, a little bit. Ruse or no, he really didn’t need to bother with this.

The magnificent face smiled down at him. One hand reached out, combing gently through Aziraphale’s hair, the touch impossible to resist leaning into.

Crowley stooped to leave one lingering kiss on Aziraphale’s forehead.

“Be back in a few, angel.” Almost whispered, those words. Then he was off. 

That _walk_ of his... swaying back and forth, as though he expected that everyone watching would swoon at his feet. It was a fair expectation, too. By this point Aziraphale had lost track of the number of times he’d watched someone flirt with Crowley, just here at this cafe. One of these days Crowley would respond favorably to one of them. Some pretty woman, or handsome man, or lovely non-binary person; someone who would be a fitting partner to him.

Aziraphale didn’t think those swinging hips affected him quite like they did anyone else. There would be an attraction there which he simply didn’t share — something beyond the aesthetic, beyond the wondering what it would be like to look like that. To catch so much as a single wandering eye. No one had ever come up during one of their conversations to flirt with Aziraphale.

Not that he wanted to be accosted by strangers. Still, there was a sort of melancholy that came with knowing that he’d never even been worth the effort.

Crowley was coming back now, hands full of coffee and food. Smiling at him. The visible part of his expression so soft, as he leaned over to place everything in front of Aziraphale. “One mocha, little bit of caramel, just the way you like it, and...” The saucer clinked down onto the table. “Two slices of the bread thing.” He dropped into his own seat, then leaned his chin on a hand. "You never get just one slice. Never have. Was that the shit lie talking?”

“I didn’t realize you —” Aziraphale stopped. Flushed at the sudden sensation of being _seen_. “More the... the people I’ve dealt with. Old habits I thought I’d left behind.”

Crowley frowned. “Am I gonna have to make sure you’re eating enough? Don’t make me be the mother hen. I’m surprisingly good at being the mother hen.”

Which was so absurd — someone worried that Aziraphale might not be eating _enough_ — that he would have laughed aloud if it had been at all humorous.

“Anyway. Two slices of bread thing. You really want one, fine, just eat one. If you actually want two, though...”

One slender finger pushed the saucer towards him.

“Whoever’s been an arsehole to you before, I’m not them. Want you to try to remember that.”

Aziraphale nodded slowly. “No. I suppose you’re not.”

The concern finally lifted from Crowley’s brow, replaced with something Aziraphale couldn’t quite put a label to. “You’re fine just — just how you are. Know that, right? Anyone thinks anything else, it’s just the lie again.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale took a sip of his coffee. Yes, there was the caramel, which he hadn’t even needed to ask for, because Crowley had apparently just memorized his usual order by this point. “I suppose that is the sort of thing you might habitually say as my boyfriend.”

“Say you were p — were perfect. If it was for the thing.” Crowley’s hands jittered briefly against his own coffee cup. “Tell you you were perfect. And then kiss you.”

Aziraphale had no answers to that, none he could speak aloud — _Oh, then do_ would be one option, _tell me you love me, love all of me — kiss me like you want to, hold me like this body is beautiful to you —_

The words throbbed in his chest, impossible to ever give voice to.

He kept his tone as light as he could, sipping at his drink again. “More practice, I suppose.”

“Yeah!” Crowley’s head turned away. “Yeah. Yup. That would, uh, would be more practice.” He slouched a little more. “Eat your bread thing first, though. Know how much you like the bread thing.”

 _First_. Strongly implying that Crowley was already planning that practice. Aziraphale lowered his warming face toward the table, thinking of their time at the restaurant the day before. “I... I’d rather not get us nearly thrown out of the cafe, if it’s all the same to you.”

Crowley must have been thinking about something else, because when Aziraphale looked up again, he was smiling. A tiny, soft thing, but it seemed to touch every bit of his face, and the result was breathtaking — literally so, as Aziraphale felt his lungs simply refuse to work for several ageless seconds.

Then he obviously snapped back to the moment, smile dropping, jolting into a slightly different slouch. “W-well, no. We don’t have to. Like that again. Could just — just go for a walk. Hold hands.”

“Enjoy each other’s company,” Aziraphale murmured, and Crowley nodded vigorously.

“But bread things first.”

They found something light to talk about, as Aziraphale savored both slices of banana bread, and Crowley kept nursing whatever caffeine sludge he’d been drinking already. Within half an hour they were both finished and on their way.

Crowley’s hand rose to shade his eyes from the noontime sun as they stepped outside. “Should’ve taken the glasses off in there,” he grunted. “Need a sec.”

Aziraphale sidestepped carefully, putting the warm brick wall of the cafe against his back, trying to get out of the path of other pedestrians. Crowley followed suit. 

His longer stride brought him very, very close.

“Oh,” Aziraphale remarked.

Crowley looked down at him, possibly, from behind his sunglasses. Then someone jostled him in passing, and he stumbled into Aziraphale.

Long fingers wound themselves into Aziraphale’s lapels. Crowley’s thin body pressed against Aziraphale’s, all his slender elegance sinking into Aziraphale’s much wider bulk. Surely he would pull back any moment. Perhaps he wasn’t _actively_ disgusted by Aziraphale, but he’d undoubtedly had more than enough time in this sort of proximity since...

The hold on his coat loosened, becoming hands rather than fists.

...since their practicing yesterday...

“This feels,” Aziraphale started, then cleared his throat. “Feels rather like. Well. The ruse.”

Crowley leaned his head closer. “Probably we’d k — we’d kiss now. If we were really in —”

“In love,” Aziraphale murmured.

“Y-yeah.”

“I suppose we could take this opportunity to — pretend.”

He lifted one hand to push back a lock of brilliant hair from Crowley’s face.

“Could,” Crowley said, before removing his own hands from Aziraphale’s chest.

One slid around the back of his head, cradling it away from the brick wall. The other —

Crowley’s other hand traced down the side of Aziraphale’s jaw, fingers curling delicately around his chin. Aziraphale let the hand tilt his face up, followed the angle of it, gazing wide-eyed into Crowley’s face so that he saw the exact moment Crowley’s smile went from small and thoughtful to blinding enough to rival the sun.

“Perfect,” he breathed. “My beautiful angel.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, too overwhelmed by that smile. By Crowley’s ability to feign love so well, down to the thumb smoothing over his bottom lip, down to the way his entire body relaxed, just a little, as his mouth opened, warm and gentle, against Aziraphale’s.

Aziraphale had been kissed before. It had been well over a decade since the last time, though, and he’d seldom entirely enjoyed the experience. It was as he’d said to Crowley yesterday. There was something terribly off-putting about having another man’s tongue in his mouth.

Crowley’s tongue kept very much to itself, even as his lips moved against Aziraphale’s, even as Aziraphale’s own mouth parted to let a quiet sigh escape. Being kissed by him felt like being longed for, being _treasured_ — like Crowley yearned for him even as he was still kissing him, both hands now wound through his hair, not pulling but holding with such tender care —

Aziraphale’s own hands were on Crowley’s back, somehow. Drawing him close, as if they never intended to let him escape. And there was no resistance, no sign that Crowley wanted to be anywhere except here, softly pinning Aziraphale to the wall, sweetly pressing love into his lips.

No. Not love. But the closest Aziraphale was likely to ever come to it.

He consciously did his best to return the kiss, at first, trying to remember how these things actually worked. Then he lost himself in it. There was nothing else — not the passage of time, not the contrast between their bodies. The man he very possibly was falling in love with was kissing him as though he meant it. That was all that mattered for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Crowley's thoughts on all this.
> 
> Just a programming note -- I am not sure I will be posting next Thursday, May 21. I might give myself the day off to try to finish one of my many, many WIPs. I will have decided (in order to let you know here) by Monday!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale have a walk together, so they can pick a date for the dinner which was the whole reason for this... thing. Well, not Crowley's whole reason. But he knows Aziraphale sure isn't getting anything else out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter-level warning note:** The word "fat" is used in a neutral-to-positive context.
> 
> **Programming note:** I'm going to take a skip day on Thursday and post the next chapter on Monday, May 25.

Crowley wondered, for the first few seconds of their kiss, whether maybe Aziraphale actually could have feelings for him. Maybe not the kind Crowley had, because Crowley was completely, utterly, one thousand percent lost for Aziraphale, for his pretty little laugh and his sweet bastard smile and his sharp, brilliant brain, all of it wrapped up in the kind of looks that should’ve had the entire world at his feet except people were idiots —

But some kind of feelings for him. Maybe.

For the next few seconds, as soft hands pressed him closer to the soft body, as soft lips asked nothing of him but only offered, tenderly, endlessly — Crowley knew. He _knew_ Aziraphale loved him. Had to love him. No way he could be this good at pretending; no one was this good at pretending. The way he clung to Crowley, the way he chased his lips each time Crowley tried to take a breath. The little sound he made, as Crowley wove the fingers of both hands through white curls, a quiet hum of delight, as if their kiss was some kind of fancy pastry and Aziraphale found it absolutely _delicious_...

But then reality set back in, of course, because Aziraphale didn’t actually love him. Couldn't. No way Crowley was that lucky. Plus he knew what it was like for someone to be interested in him. He might not be as beautiful as Aziraphale, but he was fairly okay, and he definitely knew what being flirted with felt like. Aziraphale never flirted. Aziraphale just... just kissed him, now that they were doing this thing, this save-Crowley-from-heteronormative-machinations thing, he just kissed him like he wanted to, and his kisses had started out clumsy yesterday, but apparently he was a fast learner because this one was anything but clumsy, slow and sweet and gentle enough to kill Crowley dead if they didn’t stop fairly soon...

His knuckles scraped the brick wall behind Aziraphale’s head, and he winced. That got a delicate little questioning sound from Aziraphale.

“‘S fine,” he mumbled against Aziraphale’s lips, “don’t...”

When he did it again a while later, Aziraphale drew back, a little line between his eyebrows. “What’s the matter, love — are you all right —”

_Love_ , and Crowley suddenly didn’t feel any pain at all from his scratched knuckles. That wasn’t a pet name they’d cleared. Totally unexpected. Magical, coming out of Aziraphale’s mouth.

The soft, pretty hands slipped away from his back. “Crowley?”

“I just. Um.” He looked down into Aziraphale’s eyes again, their blue darkened with concern. “Isn’t anything, just...”

He realized, dimly, that he was stroking Aziraphale’s hair. The fingers of one hand played through his curls, tickling through the golden locks, and Aziraphale tilted his head back, just a bit, a tiny smile blooming on his round face...

And Crowley’s knuckles knocked the wall again. “Ouch! Bugger.”

Aziraphale ducked out of his arms, plucking up his hands and gasping at the reddish scrapes over the backs of them. “Good Lord, you should have said something! We could have stopped, we didn’t have to... to keep...”

He turned an adorable shade of pink. Let go of Crowley’s hands and stepped back, fetching up against the wall again, though thankfully without bumping his head.

“I am dreadfully sorry,” he said. “I shouldn't have — oh.”

Crowley shook his head. “Didn’t do anything wrong. Was just — we were practicing, yeah? Some good practice there. Probably, gh, extremely realistic. From the outside.”

That got a reaction that was too quick to name. Sort of a brightening for an instant, but then Aziraphale’s eyes clouded again. “Do you think your mother will be satisfied, then? Will you be scheduling the visit?”

“My —” Right. Sure. Aziraphale would want this over, wouldn’t he? He was willing to do Crowley a favor, and he was in for an excellent meal as a reward, because Crowley’s mum was a great cook. But Crowley had to let him _reach_ the reward. Couldn’t just string him along with kisses and hand-holding and beautiful pet names forever. Wouldn’t be fair. Aziraphale didn’t actually want any of that.

“Yeah. I guess mum’d buy it.” Trying not to let how he felt about the answer show. Trying not to sound too excited as he realized: “Though we still haven’t really h-held hands. Yeah? We were gonna take a walk. Let’s — let’s talk. Y’know. Scheduling, while we do.”

He offered one hand to Aziraphale, who looked at it, for a few seconds, like he expected it to do something startling.

Then Crowley’s hand was taken in a soft, warm palm, wrapped gently with round fingers. Shaking, just a little. Or maybe that was just him.

“All right,” Aziraphale said. Darting his eyes up at Crowley, then away. His fat, pretty hand pressed against Crowley’s — carefully avoiding the scraped knuckles — and he smiled into Crowley’s sunglasses. “Lead the way, dear.”

Crowley would have kissed him again, if they’d really been dating. Just for that smile, and the thing it did to his eyes, and the way his voice lilted over the word _dear_. Just for being Aziraphale.

He just let his own mouth tick upward. “Sure thing, angel.”

Aziraphale’s face did something very subtle. But when Crowley started down the pavement, he came along without hesitation.

“Could walk around in Soho Square, if you wanted.” Crowley resisted the urge to swing their joined hands like a five-year-old. “Or just wander the pavement like this. But I know you like the parks.”

“I — I do. Yes. And it is only a little distance away...”

“Right. Park it is.”

Silence between them, then. Not bad silence. Aziraphale’s hand fit into his, warm and just a little damp, proof that Crowley wasn’t dreaming. There really was a divine creature walking beside him. The pavement was a little noisy, a little crowded, but they’d be at Soho Square Gardens in a couple of minutes. Then they could talk. Although talking meant planning, meant working out exactly what the last day of this whole wonderful thing would be, because once Crowley had passed Aziraphale off as his boyfriend once, that would be the end of it.

“Here we are,” Aziraphale said, as they crossed the street into the square.

“Yeah.”

Aziraphale went quiet again after that. They both did, although Crowley at least knew why he wasn’t saying anything. They’d ended up walking closer together at some point, hands bumping his skinny leg occasionally, or Aziraphale’s round thigh. Just strolling around the park at random, enjoying the day. Was magic. He didn’t want to break the spell by talking.

“Well,” Aziraphale said at last. “I don’t have much of a social life, as you might expect —”

“Bloody well mightn’t,” Crowley said without thinking.

Aziraphale blushed prettily. “Yes. That’s... of course, since we’re... obviously I mean other than our, ah. Our dates.”

His fingers spasmed as he said the word, then squeezed with gentle deliberateness.

“I only meant that I would be able to go with you whenever is convenient.” He looked away for a moment. At the trees, maybe. “To complete this ruse.”

Complete the ruse. Never be able to hold Aziraphale’s hand again. Or hold Aziraphale. Ever.

“I guess, uh.” Crowley glanced sideways at him. “You figure we’ll be believable in...” How much could he hope for, how much could he ask... “A week?”

Aziraphale stopped walking, looking almost dismayed. “A _week_?”

“Gh — no, that’s stupid, you’re right. Few more days, then. Or, or maybe I just ask mum to have us over tomorrow, we’re probably fine now.” He was babbling, he knew, but he had to drown out the echo of that shocked cry somehow. Too much to ask, obviously, this beautiful man putting up with all Crowley’s clinging for that long.

“N-no!” Aziraphale had dropped Crowley’s hand, was now wringing both his own hands against his belly. He seemed barely able to look in Crowley’s direction. “That isn’t it — you don’t think a week might... be too short?”

Crowley stared.

“I’d hate for the illusion to end too soon,” Aziraphale told the ground. “In — in front of your mother.”

Crowley tilted his head.

“Perhaps two weeks?”

And impossibly, Aziraphale looked up at him with _hope_ in his face. Like their not slipping up was important to him.

The urge to just hold him, just hold him close and rub his back and maybe kiss his pretty hair, had never been stronger.

“Two weeks is great. Is good. Is —” Crowley cleared his throat. “We could go, uh, next Saturday? And we, we practice till then.”

“Until then,” Aziraphale echoed. “Yes.”

He shuffled closer, laying one timid hand on Crowley’s arm. “Should we walk together a little more, do you think?”

Crowley pretended to consider the question for an entire second. “Might as well. Coupley things, right? Gotta get those down.”

Aziraphale stopped looking at Crowley again, but the expression he pointed at the ground was different, this time. Eyes soft, mouth tipping upward just a little. Just the tiniest bit of pink in his adorable pudgy cheeks.

There was that urge again. Crowley gave into it.

He took away the last few inches of space between them, bumping up against Aziraphale’s hip. Slipped an arm around Aziraphale’s back.

“Okay?” he asked, and the rapid, awkward nod didn’t feel quite enough like consent. Then Aziraphale leaned into him with a sigh. His own arm went around Crowley’s back, fingers running softly over Crowley’s side.

“You’re so _slender,_ ” Aziraphale murmured. “I’ve never been slender in my life.”

Crowley rubbed his back now, slow and gentle, and kissing his hair was looking more and more like it might be an option any second now. “Know what your boyfriend would say to that?”

“Hmm?” Quiet. Almost sleepy. Head leaning on Crowley’s chest, as Crowley kept rubbing his back.

“Remind you that you’re perfect.”

And this was the time to lay that kiss on Aziraphale’s hair. Gentle, lingering. Aziraphale made a little sound, tensing up, but then he went soft and quiet again.

“I’d remind you that you’re perfect, just how you are. Be perfect no matter what. Hold you now, and hold you if you got fatter, and hold you if you got even skinnier’n me.” Another kiss left on the side of his head. “Still be my angel.”

“If,” Aziraphale whispered. “If you — were really my boyfriend.”

Crowley felt himself go cold, turned to ice all at once. Then he went hot, face probably redder than his hair, and it was a lucky thing Aziraphale was still leaning on Crowley’s chest, so he couldn’t see any of it.

“The pretend. Yeah. Th-that.”

Aziraphale pulled away, very suddenly. Didn’t look at him. “It’s certainly a nice thought, thank you. I appreciate it.”

He took Crowley’s hand like it was some kind of chore, unpleasant but necessary. “Let’s complete our walk. Perhaps you could tell me about... oh, that childhood incident you alluded to, with the goose. That seems the sort of story I would know by now if you really did lo —” His fingers twitched. “If we really were dating.”

Crowley forced a nod. “Sure.”

“Instead of barely friends. Who hardly know each other.”

“Let’s get on with it, then.” Trying for lightness, but who knew if he’d managed it. Felt like he’d be dark forever. Like someone had snuffed out his sun.

His sun still walked beside him, though, and their joined hands were the only point of contact between them, but at least that was something. And they talked. Crowley told Aziraphale about the goose. Aziraphale told Crowley about his grandmother’s series of increasingly ill-tempered dogs. Crowley complained about his car, which Aziraphale hadn’t even seen yet because the damn thing was in the shop again; Aziraphale extolled the virtues of the public transportation system until Crowley pointed out that nobody ever looked cool riding a bus. After that the conversation went wherever it felt like.

When Aziraphale dropped Crowley’s hand to check his pocket watch, it was hard to act nonchalant. Even harder when Aziraphale said “Oh — I really should get back to the shop —” and then reached for Crowley’s hand again.

This time, when Crowley gave it, Aziraphale closed his eyes for a second, a little smile tucking itself into the corners of his mouth.

“Walk you home?”

The words came out on their own, but somehow he couldn’t regret them. Maybe it was the way that little smile unfurled as Aziraphale looked up at him.

“You’ve never been there, have you? Oh, you must.” He swung their hands the way Crowley had wanted to earlier, giddy and joyful, but it was only because he loved his shop so much. “I feel as though we’ve spent half the day together, and surely you’ve better things to do with your time, but you’ll need to have at least _seen_ it, I suppose.”

Crowley dared to stroke his thumb down the side of Aziraphale’s hand. “Got all the time in the world for you. Plus, I’m freelance these days. You’re the one with regular hours.”

For some reason Aziraphale giggled. “Oh, my dear. We _will_ need to correct you on that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was definitely thinking of [Blame It on the Goose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20886581/chapters/49647467) when I decided there was an incident with a goose in Crowley's past. Not that exact incident, obviously. But. Goose.
> 
> I hope everyone's doing okay. Feel free to rejoin me next Monday for another chapter of these two being the Kings Of Obliviousness. I believe we are about halfway done now!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley spend some time together at Aziraphale's shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter-level warning note:** References to previous experiences with fatphobia.
> 
> **Really gorgeous artwork note:** Tumblr user penbwl created [this](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/618767474210570240/oh-my-god-oh-my-god-theyre-adorable-and-i) and it is beautiful and I love it very much.
> 
> **Programming note:** I'm going to take a skip day on Thursday, again, and post the next chapter on Monday, June 1st. It has been A Week at my house, and promises to be so again next week.
> 
> I am also about three months behind on comment replies at this point. It's... it's been quite a number of A Weeks in a row, really.
> 
> I hope you're all doing okay.

Two weeks.

Two more weeks of this dream. Two more weeks where Aziraphale might reasonably expect to feel his hand fitting into Crowley’s, just like this. To feel his entire body fitting into Crowley’s embrace, all of him, just how he was.

He’d been absolutely sure that Crowley had seen through him, for a moment there. It had been an unpleasant surprise, the thought of having to end the dream, and he really oughtn’t to have pushed it as far as he did.

Crowley had accepted, though. Aziraphale could pretend that he could be loved until Saturday next week.

The hand on Aziraphale’s was strong and warm. The whole way to the bookshop, it never faltered, never fell away, until the moment Aziraphale had to release it to find his keys.

“Huh,” Crowley said. “Very, uh, vintage. That the original grime in the windows, or...”

“Oh, hush. Anyone who wants gleaming modernity is welcome to shop somewhere else.” The lock clicked, and Aziraphale pushed the door open. “After you...?”

He turned around once they were both inside, locking up again out of some vague idea that they might want their privacy. When he faced back into the shop, he very nearly ran into Crowley. The silly man had barely made it out of the entranceway before stopping.

It would be — well, appropriate for a boyfriend to be affectionate now, wouldn’t it? To not even have to think about it, have to question it. An easy, unconscious sort of thing, something like...

Aziraphale moved forward, enough that he could put his arms around Crowley’s narrow waist, hands resting against Crowley’s flat stomach; he could easily feel the sudden inrush of breath, then the slow exhale. His own belly pressed against Crowley’s back, which couldn’t be helped. But if Crowley had been honest when he’d claimed to find nothing wrong with Aziraphale’s body, then it shouldn’t matter.

Crowley’s hands covered his. “Hello.”

“I’ve owned this shop for, hmm, not quite fourteen years now.” Aziraphale rested his head on Crowley’s back, continuing to talk about absolutely anything other than what he was doing. “I worked here before that, though — it’s actually been passed down in the family for generations. It was my uncle’s until he retired.”

“Grime is original, then.”

Crowley’s fingers brushed his. Crowley leaned back, leaned against him, just a little — Aziraphale’s soft bulk not just tolerated but willingly accepted. It made Aziraphale’s heart hurt. He could have everything he wanted in Crowley, if only he didn’t want romantic love.

“The grime is a very important part of the aesthetic,” he said, in what was not nearly as pert a tone as he’d been aiming for, “and I will not have you disturbing it.”

A quiet laugh. “All right, fine. How about you show me around and I promise to keep my hands to myself.”

“Oh, would you? I do so hate when people handle my books.”

Crowley spun around at that, pulling off his sunglasses to fix Aziraphale with an arch look, one eyebrow raised halfway to the ceiling. Aziraphale just cocked an eyebrow right back at him, though, mouth resolutely straight. Whatever Crowley might have been about to say, it disappeared in a laugh.

“Think you’re funny,” he said. The hand not holding his sunglasses threaded gentle fingers through Aziraphale’s hair. “My boyfriend thinks he’s funny. Thinks he’s clever.”

Aziraphale’s arms still encircled Crowley, and he let his hands drift over the firm planes of his back. There was something very soothing about this. There was a quiet calm in their being so close, Crowley’s slender body still in his embrace, Crowley’s hand still in his hair. “Never met the fellow,” Aziraphale murmured, eyes feeling very heavy all of a sudden. “But I’m sure he’s simply brilliant.”

Crowley’s hand stilled. “Sure.”

He pulled away, tucking the sunglasses into his collar, putting both hands into his pockets. “Have to be brilliant, wouldn’t he, for me to fall for him. And wonderful, and beautiful. Whole package.” His lovely eyes fixed themselves on the distance somewhere. “Show me around?”

Aziraphale cursed himself internally. He’d pushed too much, with his wandering hands and his careless tongue, and he’d only made things uncomfortable.

“Of course.” He did not permit himself a sigh. “First, if you like, you may hang your bag up here...”

Crowley’s sleek black messenger bag did not at all fit in with the other things on the coat rack — long tartan scarves; soft, pale jumpers; Aziraphale’s beloved antique-styled topcoat. Aziraphale told himself very firmly to take careful note of this. The idea of his ever belonging to Crowley — of Crowley ever belonging to him — was as foolish as the idea of Crowley donning one of his jumpers. It was costume at best. Nothing real to it at all.

He could give his friend a tour, though, so that was what he did.

“...ah, and this section is one of my favorites.” Aziraphale turned the corner of a bookcase, running a careful finger along the worn spines. “I’m a bit of a collector, in addition to running a business...”

“Hadn’t picked that up yet,” Crowley deadpanned.

“Oh, hush.” Aziraphale swatted at him, unable to stop the fond smile that spread over his face. Crowley smiled back, though. Perhaps the shop tour had smoothed over Aziraphale’s earlier gaffe. “Ever since my days working for my uncle as a boy, I’ve collected these. They’ve no particular monetary value, for the most part — many of them he might have thrown away, if I hadn’t rescued them. But I’ve always been drawn to the subject matter.”

He pulled a volume down, smiling at its familiar red cloth binding. It was badly worn, but he could still trace the figure on the cover, and the words above it. Crowley leaned in, seeming very interested, as Aziraphale eased the cover open. Their arms brushed for just a moment.

“‘The Magician’s Own Book’,” Crowley read aloud. “‘Being a complete book of parlor magic’...”[1]

His handsome face lit up with absolute delight, and Aziraphale’s breath lodged in his chest. It was a bit terrifying, to realize that he wasn’t sure what he might do if Crowley were to turn that expression on him. A lucky thing, then, that Crowley was looking at the shelves instead. He grinned even wider as he took in just how many of these books Aziraphale had.

“Of course.” His warm voice filled the space between them. “Really should’ve guessed. Course you’d be into magic.”

The brilliant smile hit Aziraphale straight on, then, and it turned out that what Aziraphale would do in that situation was to simply freeze.

“Angels do miracles, and all.”

Crowley’s arm didn’t just brush his, now; he actually raised a hand to Aziraphale’s shoulder, leaning on him, a little, as he peered down at the open page. “‘Pour into a saucer a little sulfuric acid’... ‘Provide a bottle of the gas chlorine, which may be purchased of any operative chemist’...? Hang on a tick. You didn’t actually _try_ any of this stuff, did you?”

“Ah. Well. Perhaps there were a few... youthful indiscretions...”

Crowley turned to a different page, the motion so careful that Aziraphale easily resisted the urge to scold him for touching. “‘Wyman’s Gun Trick. Having provided yourself with a fowling-piece, permit any person to load it’ — _Aziraphale!_ ”

The hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder didn’t shake so much as wobble him, just once, gently. “You better not’ve been playing with _guns_. Could’ve gotten _hurt_.”

“I promise you no guns were involved,” Aziraphale replied faintly.

“Okay. Good.” Crowley’s expression cleared a little. “Thought this kind of thing was all, y’know, cards and coins.”

“Oh, the Victorians were quite an inventive people. You should see the number of tricks that started with instructions for some kind of apparatus.”

Crowley’s hand slid away from Aziraphale’s shoulder when Aziraphale stepped forward to replace the book. It was not replaced when he stepped back.

“I spent many hours with these books, when I was young. I... didn’t have many friends, I’m afraid.” He made himself chuckle, trying for lightness. “Always been a bit of an odd duck.”

Crowley’s mouth curled down. “Ahh, we’re all stupid when we’re young. Least I was. Bet the other kids were too. Just didn’t know what they were missing. Probably never realize, poor bastards. They lost out.”

Aziraphale clamped his own mouth shut, glad for the dim lighting that reigned throughout most of the shop. Even if he hadn’t had feelings for Crowley, his eyes would be threatening dampness now. That was very possibly the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to him. And what an absurd idea, that it could be a loss to not know him. What an absurd and wonderful idea.

“I think that’s the shop floor, more or less.” If any unevenness slipped into his voice, it appeared to go unnoticed. “Care to join me in the back room for a drink?”

Crowley grinned. “See? Their loss, my gain. Seems like I really come out ahead, here.”

The grin quieted, as he looked down at Aziraphale. One could almost call the new expression tender.

“Probably would’ve had a lot of time together here, if we’d been. You know. Dating.”

All those months... yes, Aziraphale supposed that was true. There were restaurants to dine at, and plays to attend, and all the sorts of things he’d dreamed of doing with a partner in the nearly fifteen years since his last attempt at romance. But one of his dearest dreams was to simply _be_ with someone. To curl up on a sofa together, snug and close, and no complaints about how round he was, how much space he took up. For so long he’d imagined the man who might be willing to sit on his sofa, and tuck an arm around him, and share a bottle of wine without any little references to its calorie content at all.

That man had been Crowley, it seemed. True, the circumstances weren’t what Aziraphale had daydreamed. But within five minutes they were on the sofa, bottle open, glasses filled. Chatting easily about, of all things, dolphins.

Crowley stopped himself midsentence, deep brown eyes holding Aziraphale’s in a way that made Aziraphale’s chest feel very, very warm. “Probably should get used to sitting more — more together,” he said, voice quiet. “You know.”

“And —” Oh, why not ask for it? Even a sham would be better than nothing. “And you should hold me. If we were dating, I’d want so badly for you to hold me.”

He felt Crowley shift, heard the clink of a glass being set down, and then his own glass was gently taken to join it. Thin arms wound around his waist and tightened.

“C’mere,” Crowley said, a little laugh in his voice. “Damn noodle, I am, don’t have enough strength to pull you over here. Come lean on me.”

“I’m too _heavy_ ,” Aziraphale whispered.

“You’re not.”

Aziraphale let himself be coaxed closer. He was leaning into Crowley, now, resting against his chest. The arms around him loosened, but didn’t let go.

Crowley’s hands rested softly on the curve of Aziraphale’s belly. Aziraphale could actually look down and see them, quiet and still.

“Not too heavy,” Crowley said behind him. “Just right.”

One of the hands moved, finding a different place to settle. “Do this every chance I had,” Crowley murmured. “If you were really mine.”

Aziraphale bit his lip until the prickling in his eyes subsided. The ache in his throat, unfortunately, was another matter. "Well, you’ll have until next Saturday to practice that sentiment,” he replied. “Convince your mother of it, and this will all be a success.”

“Yeah.” Crowley let out a long breath beneath him. “Success.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. You can find this book [online at archive.org](https://archive.org/details/magiciansownbook00arno/), and the tricks mentioned are on pages 46, 110, and 114.[return to text]  
> 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale have been doing this "practicing acting like a couple" thing for the better part of two weeks now. It sure is a shame that it's almost time for them to put on the act in front of Crowley's mum, after which point there obviously won't be any more kisses or cuddles or anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter-level warning note:**
> 
>   * The word "fat" is used in a **very slightly negative** -to-positive context
>   * A small, quickly-challenged smidge of internalized fatphobia, centered around the topic of our engineered-by-humans-so-it's-not-like-we-couldn't-choose-to-do-better-than-this world not always fitting everyone.
> 

> 
> **Programming note:** I'm going to take a skip day on Thursday, for the third week running, and post something (probably the next chapter, but could be something else) on Monday, June 8th. I am hoping to have my feet under me a little bit by then.
> 
> I am also still about three months behind on comment replies, but I knocked out 80 of the things yesterday, so that's something. They are IMPORTANT because you lovely humans CARED enough to TYPE THEM and that MATTERS DANG IT. UPPERCASE.

This was going to break Crowley. Zero percent chance of survival. Every time he thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.

He should’ve just put up with the niece. Or the daughter, or the second cousin thrice removed, or whatever. Awkward small talk ruining his entire trip home, and his mum smiling happily at them both the whole time. But nope. He’d taken the hard way out, so now his life was full of gentle kisses, and murmured endearments, and sweetly shining eyes. Of evenings spent at his flat or the bookshop, snuggled together on the sofa with the man he might as well just admit he was completely in love with.

The days had flown by, and they’d definitely become known as an item around their usual haunts. They held hands everywhere, and Crowley called Aziraphale “angel”, and Aziraphale called Crowley “dear” and “darling” and a growing list of even more terrible things. One of the employees at the cafe had said something about how she was so glad they’d finally gotten together.

But Aziraphale wasn’t _his_.

In between all the fake romance, they talked for hours, sometimes, in the back room of the shop. Crowley would flop down into his standard spot against the sofa arm, and Aziraphale would lean on him, warm and heavy and exactly everything Crowley wanted. Crowley would wrap his arms around Aziraphale and rest both hands on Aziraphale’s beautiful belly. Or he’d rest one hand while he held a glass of something in the other. Or he’d be doing something else entirely with his hands, stroking Aziraphale’s hair or fiddling with his phone or poking at the book Aziraphale was pretending to try to read. And through just about all of it, they’d talk.

They’d probably come out of this as best friends. Which was great, fucking fantastic, because Crowley loved just chatting with him as they sat across a table, walked down the street, drank together — whatever, it didn’t matter. Aziraphale was ridiculously clever, and by some miracle Crowley seemed basically able to keep up, and they disagreed on just enough stuff to keep things interesting. He wanted Aziraphale as his friend. No matter what else, he wanted that.

Great big bloody yes-and to that, though, wasn’t there? He wanted Aziraphale for his best friend, _and also_ he wanted to kiss him right on his pretty, soft little mouth.

Which he could, for now.

He was loitering outside Aziraphale’s shop, waiting for him to come out so they could go to dinner. When the door creaked open he looked up, feeling his heart skip several beats as a familiar figure emerged. Locked up, turned to scan the area, and then his eyes fell on Crowley and he _beamed_. Crowley had never really understood the meaning of the word before. Eyes huge and bright, mouth grinning wide. Pudgy cheeks drawn up round enough for all of Crowley’s kisses.

“ _Darling_ ,” Aziraphale said, and he practically bowled Crowley over, hurtling at him and throwing soft arms around his neck. Which was a thing he did now. It usually knocked Crowley back a couple steps, and it always ended with his arms full of gorgeousness, and it was absolutely the worst thing he could imagine. He’d thought the kissing would be, or the sofa snuggles. Turned out it was this. Aziraphale was adorable and precious and way, _way_ too good at pretending to be in love with him, and Crowley wasn’t going to survive having to give him up.

They had a few days left. For now he could press his lips to Aziraphale’s cheeks, his forehead, the heartstopping crease of his chin. For now he could listen to that musical little laugh and grin down into tender eyes.

“Hey there.”

“Hello.”

Aziraphale kissed him now, just a chaste little peck, although it lingered. He sighed prettily when they were done. “I gather the repairs were finished?”

“The, err...”

“On your _car_.” Then, when Crowley just kept making vague noises, “Your car which you have been talking about all _week_. You don’t seem to have arrived in a taxi, so I assume you’ll be driving us to dinner?”

Car. Right. Right, car — “I. Yeah, just got her back today. Oh, you’ll love her, she’s a beautiful machine. Feat of engineering.”

“Hmm. Should I be jealous?”

The tiniest little smirk, as Aziraphale asked the question. Crowley’s heart whimpered. “Never. Can’t, can’t hold her, can I? Just a, you know. Cold, hard lump of metal.”

Aziraphale being not cold at all, of course. Not hard at all. He was warm in Crowley’s arms, and snuggly and soft and a thousand times as beautiful as the Bentley. Maybe a million. She’d never compare.

Of course, she was actually his, which was something. Aziraphale was... was on loan. Borrowed from himself. This time next week, he’d be just his own again, instead of also Crowley’s.

Gentle fingers touched his cheek, then drew hesitantly back again. “Are you all right? Should I not —” Aziraphale started to pull away. “I’m sorry, I’ve gotten so — so _familiar_ , I sometimes forget —”

“Ngh — hey. Hey, no.” Crowley folded Aziraphale’s hands in his own. “Don’t apologize. I was just thinking of. Of something kind of sad. That’s all. It wasn’t you.”

He picked his next few words very carefully. “You’re not a sad thing. You’ve been a happy thing since the first day we met. And that’s not — that’s not pretend.” He couldn’t quite meet Aziraphale’s eyes, but that was okay. Aziraphale seemed to be mostly blushing down at the ground anyway. “I’m still going to think it even after Saturday. Keep on thinking it as long as we’re friends.”

Aziraphale looked up into his sunglasses for a half-second before lowering his eyes again. His voice was quiet but clear. “You make me very happy, as well. I had my doubts, but I think I’m glad you asked me this favor.”

The eyes raised again, sweet pink blush spreading darker over Aziraphale’s face, as his hands shifted, taking Crowley’s now, pressing them tenderly to his own soft chest. Crowley felt everything inside himself grow still. Aziraphale didn’t actually love him, of course not, but — but then again, maybe he’d started seeing Crowley in a different light because of all this — maybe that’s what he meant, when he said he was _glad_ — maybe he was about to say it, say the thing Crowley couldn’t, that he was too afraid to admit...

“I would love to remain your friend, if I may,” Aziraphale told him. “For all the rest of my life.”

The round hands holding Crowley’s shook. Just a little. Like Aziraphale was afraid Crowley might reject that offer of friendship.

Which would happen right about when hell froze over.

“C’mere, you idiot.” Crowley grabbed him in a hug, not a cuddle or anything, just a hug. What would’ve been a huge, crushing bear hug if he didn’t have the muscle tone of well-done linguine. “Course you may. _Course_ you may.”

He thought about three words he could say, and he’d mean them, yep, every little breath of them. But he hadn’t said them yet. Couldn’t bear saying them and having them be taken as just another part of the pretend. 

Change them, then. Just a bit. “I love being around you. Don’t know why I’d ever want to stop.”

Aziraphale sighed. It sounded like a good sigh, though. And he was returning the hug, warm and caring and without a single bit of the awkwardness from the very first time they’d done it. “It seems that we are in agreement, then.”

“Good.”

Aziraphale nodded his head against Crowley’s chest. His pale hair tickled at Crowley’s chin.

A horn sounded down the street somewhere, reminding Crowley that, oh yeah, they had somewhere to be.

“Aaaanyway.”

Crowley pulled back from the hug, just enough to take Aziraphale’s soft chin in his fingers. When Aziraphale’s head raised itself at his touch, he grinned. “Hungry, angel?”

“I am.” Aziraphale didn’t move, though. His mouth opened, just a little, then closed again. “Would... after all this, would you still call...”

Round cheeks darkened. “Never mind. Let’s go, then, dear.”

He tilted his head, though, like he wanted to be kissed. Eyes seeming to fix on Crowley’s lips before they slipped closed.

Crowley kissed him. Stupid of him, and selfish, the same old story, because of course Aziraphale _didn’t_ want to be kissed. It was just so hard to remember that, sometimes. Especially when he hummed quietly, kissing back with gentle care. Especially when he held Crowley close.

Saturday would definitely go off without any trouble at all. There would be plenty of trouble afterwards, for Crowley’s heart, having to get used to not this anymore. But his mum wouldn’t suspect a thing.

When they started down the pavement, it was with Aziraphale’s hand tucked into Crowley’s arm.

* * *

Aziraphale had known, of course, that Crowley owned some manner of vintage car. Not being one for such things himself — he hadn’t even carried an operator’s license in years — he hadn’t thought much more on the subject. It wasn’t until they were nearly there that he remembered the last time he’d ridden in another’s car.

The lovely young lady working for the rideshare company had been more than gracious (she’d seemed even more upset than Aziraphale, although that might have been concern over how the incident would affect her rating). The impact was the same, though: the seatbelt in her sporty little vehicle had not been able to fit him.

She had offered him another try with the front seat. He had declined, not eager to repeat the humiliation. For twenty minutes he’d ridden in miserable silence, unbelted in the back.

He had deleted the application from his mobile as soon as he’d reached his destination.

It had been all buses and the Underground since then, or taxi rides from one of the companies whose fleets he trusted. For... three years, was it?... he’d avoided private vehicles, with their unpredictable sizing, their meticulous design for people who were not him.

Crowley walked them to the passenger side, opened the door, and said “In you go, then” with a warm smile, as though he couldn’t imagine there being cause for concern.

“I, ah.” Aziraphale looked at the seat, innocuously upholstered in brown leather. “I might not fit.”

His face grew heated as he said it, which was foolish. Crowley knew he was fat. Crowley didn’t _care_ that he was fat, not enough for it to affect their friendship, with the details of Aziraphale’s body safely hidden from sight and touch under layers of clothing. None of this should be a surprise.

Crowley’s expression darkened instantly, which only made Aziraphale feel worse. “Oh fuck, I didn’t — course I didn’t think, I never think — is, is that a thing? That...”

“That I am too fat for some cars. Yes.” Then he scowled, shaking his head. “No. No, bother, that’s not right. _Some cars_ are too small for _me_.”

Crowley’s forehead wrinkled as Aziraphale spoke, brows drawing together in obvious distress, but the look cleared with that last sentence. His hands clasped Aziraphale’s shoulders as he perhaps looked into Aziraphale’s eyes through his dark glasses. “You know you’re more important than cars. Than any car. Even this one, and I love her to pieces, but I l —”

The hands tensed briefly.

“I care about you more. Always will. Okay?”

Aziraphale glanced into the open car again. The retracted seatbelt gleamed against the dark leather, rather as though it were staring back at him. “If I don’t fit —”

“If my car,” Crowley said firmly, “doesn’t fit you —”

“— then we’ll have to cancel our reservation.”

Crowley’s hands slid down his arms, then back up again. Aziraphale might almost have called it a caress.

“More important than any reservations, too. Think I’d want to be there without you?”

When Crowley leaned in, Aziraphale wondered distractedly whether it was time for more practice kissing already. All he did was tilt his head down, though. His captivating eyes just barely peeked over the tops of his glasses. “Don’t even have to, to try her if you don’t want. Say the word and I cancel the reservation, maybe order takeaway instead, if that’s what you want.” One hand floated up to brush over the round swell of Aziraphale’s cheek. “Just tell me what you want.”

_You_ , Aziraphale found himself remarkably close to saying.

“I will... will ‘try her’. It would be better to be certain.” His head tipped sideways quite without his permission, into the hand which was now cradling his cheek. “And I was so looking forward to this meal.”

“Course you were. You love sushi.” A smile touched Crowley’s face before the serious expression returned. “I won’t — won’t feel any different about you. No matter what. Seatbelt too short or whatever. Doesn’t make any difference, because I’m in — I’m friends with _you_ , not with your ability to ride in a car. All right?”

Aziraphale’s throat tightened. “All right.”

Crowley stepped back, holding the door open for him. Such a gentleman he was, even with no real love behind it. How sweet might he be to someone who’d actually won his heart? Could he possibly hold them more tenderly than he’d held Aziraphale?

One deep breath, then, and Aziraphale climbed in. The car settled beneath him. The seat was surprisingly comfortable. The metal of the buckle, grasped in one hand, was surprisingly cold.

He nearly shouted aloud when the belt clicked fast.

“She fits you? Yeah?” Crowley was leaning into the car, suddenly, one hand on the back of the seat. The other reached toward Aziraphale, then hovered awkwardly in midair. “It’s not... not too tight, is it? Needs to be comfy, don’t ever want you not to be comfy...”

Aziraphale pulled in a deep breath, feeling the seatbelt draw out easily as he did. “It seems to be just fine.”

“That, uh... good. That’s good.” Crowley’s mouth twitched a brief smile. “Gonna close the door now.”

He shut Aziraphale in, then moved to the driver’s side in a sort of rapid half-saunter. Moments later he was sliding behind the wheel.

Then he pulled his sunglasses off and looked Aziraphale directly in the eyes.

“Meant what I said. Nothing was — was _hanging_ on this. Don’t care how fat you are. I care that you’re _you_.”

Oh, but he was magnificent. His hair fell in waves to his shoulders, soft flame where the light caught it. His face was all fine angles, high cheekbones and strong browline and his jaw, so firm and yet so gentle. His eyes were stunningly deep, gorgeously dark; they fixed on Aziraphale’s face with an intensity that was difficult to bear. Part of Aziraphale wanted to look away, because such eyes might see far more than he wanted to reveal. The rest of him wanted to never stop looking.

Crowley was the most handsome man he had ever seen in his life. If only he had had the decency to be boring, or unpleasant, or unkind. Aziraphale had never been too concerned with the looks of potential partners, back when he’d thought there was any point in trying to date — it was a lovely heart he wanted, and arms that had room for him. For Crowley to have that, have all he’d ever asked for, and to look like this as well — oh, good Lord, how could he expect Aziraphale to _not_ fall in love with him?

Crowley’s last words still whispered through his mind. _I care that you’re you_.

“Ah,” Aziraphale said at last, with everything he felt lined up in the shadow of that one small word. “I suppose it’s... good that I am me, then. And not someone else.”

Crowley laughed, low and warm. His eyes fixed softly on Aziraphale for one last moment before the sunglasses returned.

“Wouldn’t change you for the world,” he said, and his tone was far too light for what the words did to Aziraphale’s heart. “Not even your taste in music, which, _if_ I haven’t been clear already, is rubbish.”

“I — why, you impossible —”

This time Crowley’s laugh was a huge, delighted thing. The Bentley roared to life beneath his hand, and the debate over the merits of Gilbert and Sullivan lasted all the way to the restaurant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Crowley's mum's!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to go to Crowley's mum's house, which means the end is almost at hand. Just a few hours, and then Crowley will never hold Aziraphale in his arms again. (Right?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter-level warning notes:**
> 
>   * The word "fat" is used once in _thinking about_ how it might be wielded as an insult. It is not in actuality used as an insult to anyone's face. 
>     * It's also used in a neutral-to-positive context because Soft Zone and I'm basically in love with one (1) beautiful fat angel so obviously Crowley is too
>   * One thoughtlessly homophobic and/or biphobic and/or aphobic statement, and reference to the statement not being an isolated incident -- not malicious but still hurtful to the person hearing it.
> 

> 
> **Programming note:** I think it is best to just assume that I will not be publishing on any Thursdays through June, and only publishing on Mondays. If I do manage a Thursday then it will be a pleasant surprise for me, and a hopefully-pleasant one for all of you!
> 
> Also, I believe this story will have 11 or 12 chapters total. After that will be... hmm. Probably the Secret Thing which doesn't actually need to be a secret anymore except I haven't gotten around to revealing it yet! I am hoping to get around to the reveal on [my Tumblr](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com) sometime in the next few days.

It wasn’t until the evening before the trip back home that Crowley started feeling nervous.

Not about — about the entire _thing_ , because he’d had plenty of time for nerves there. What if it all went wrong, what if his mum wasn’t convinced, what if Aziraphale realized how Crowley really felt about him...

The problem was after. Was what if it all went _right_.

He didn’t worry anymore about their being convincing, because they definitely had everyone here in Soho fooled. Any time Crowley went out by himself for coffee or something to eat, he could lay even money on someone asking him where his boyfriend was. He’d been called Mr Fell once, and Aziraphale had been called Mr Crowley once, and Aziraphale had turned _scarlet_ when it happened, which Crowley hadn’t understood until it hit him much later that people were assuming they were married.

Married. Damn good thing he’d been alone by that point, because he’d slapped a hand over his mouth and made a very embarrassing whining noise and probably his eyes had been about six inches wide. Married to Aziraphale. Aziraphale’s _husband_ , and the kisses and cuddles wouldn’t be pretend at all then, no. They’d be real. Crowley could gather up Aziraphale in his arms, not just on the sofa but in bed every night, fall asleep beside him and hold his dreams close and safe...

So of course they were convincing, because Aziraphale was a BAFTA-worthy performer, and Crowley had never been more sincere in his life. After the trip home, though, they’d be ready to stage the break-up. And how the hell would that work? Would they have to act like their affections were cooling, drift apart over time? Would they decide to just end it all at once?

Fuck, would they have to pretend to fight?

Without the least bit of permission, Crowley’s brain followed that idea to its conclusion. There was an obvious way to stage hurting Aziraphale, and it would look real, all right. Crowley could just stare him right in the face, and sneer, and lie “You’re right. You’re not attractive at all. Someone fat as you can’t be anything but ugly, and I can’t stand to touch you one fucking second more.”

Do it in public, maybe. Take the simple little word — the soft, pretty little word, three letters that formed the shape of the man Crowley ached to hold until all the stars went out — and spit it like a curse. Aziraphale would startle back, probably, looking absolutely betrayed. Maybe his beautiful eyes would fill with tears. Crowley’s were doing it now just thinking about it. If they’d pretended to be dating, to be so ridiculously in love that no one could ever mistake it, then they’d need the split to be just as believable. Crowley could hardly show his mum a coworker’s-daughter-proof relationship one day and then idly say “Oh yeah, we called it quits” the next.

Just imagining it hurt, though. The right words (the wrong, the very extremely _wrong_ words) were a sword that would pierce Aziraphale’s heart. Crowley wished he could throw it away.

His mum called to check some last-minute details the evening before his visit. Yeah, they’d be there around 5. No, they wouldn’t need the guest room made up. _No_ , they really weren’t going to spend the night. Yes, Crowley still liked banoffee pie.

“And Aziraphale would probably love it,” he said. He glared at his monitor, wondering if he could threaten this logo into looking less boring. Graphic, design thyself, or something. “Probably ask you for the recipe.”

His mum laughed. “Well, it’s right on the back of the condensed milk, so she doesn’t need to ask me. Although I will take the secret of my hand-whipped cream to my grave.”

“I figured it out years ago, remember? You’ve got that whisk that’s haunted by the ghosts of a million pastry chefs. But, uh.” Crowley grimaced. “Mum. There’s something you should know about Aziraphale. Something I haven’t, uh...”

He trailed off. This would have been awkward as hell a couple weeks ago. Why hadn’t he realized it’d be even worse now?

“Tony,” his mum said, in the same voice that had seen him through every illness and injury and heartbreak of his childhood. “If you love her, then she’s already family. There isn’t anything I need to know.”

“He.” Crowley’s hand cramped around the phone. “He’s family.”

A silence that lasted for either a second or a million years — Crowley couldn’t tell.

“With a lovely name like that,” his mum said wonderingly. “Is it foreign?”

“I, uh. Haven’t asked, actually.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t particularly want grandchildren.” The words were light, but Crowley’s heart sank under them anyway. “Still, you can see how I might get mixed up. You said he was ‘pretty’.”

Crowley closed his eyes. Round face turning up to him, soft mouth curving in a fond little smile. The bright eyes, and the cotton-fluff curls, and the tilt of the nose, shaped perfectly to capture Crowley’s heart.

All of Aziraphale was shaped perfectly to capture Crowley’s heart.

“He’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Crowley answered. Wiped away the sudden tears before they could get into his voice. "And I love him so goddamn much.”

“That’s all I need to know, Tony.”

Crowley mumbled an answer, and the conversation moved on. The rest of that evening, and the next day up until he approached the bookshop door, was uneventful.

The door was locked, but when Crowley tapped on it, it cracked open almost immediately. One bright eye peeked out at him — pulled away —

The door opened wide, and then Aziraphale’s arms were wrapping around his neck. Aziraphale’s perfect fat body was snuggling up against him, so close but Crowley could pull him closer, _did_ pull him closer, both hands on his round waist where they belonged, holding and cherishing him, forever and ever and ever...

“ _Darling_ ,” Aziraphale sighed, before kissing him like they hadn’t seen each other in a year.

Crowley found himself kissing back the same way. Had they just spent the afternoon together yesterday? Yes. Was today the last chance he’d have for this, the last day to ever hold Aziraphale, to kiss him like he deserved? Also yes. Two hours from now they’d be in Tadfield, and a few hours after that would be dinner, the only reason he’d ever had this glorious lie at all. There would be no more kisses after that.

He was so far in love with Aziraphale that he’d never find his way out again. But after today, he could never show it.

“Darling,” Aziraphale said again, pressing soft lips to the corner of Crowley’s mouth. “Darling, my dearest, my only one —”

With each phrase he left another kiss on Crowley’s face, on his cheeks and jaw, and one delivered on tiptoes to his nose. Funny, how he’d claimed at the beginning of all this to not be much for pet names. Crowley hadn’t ever been called “my treasured heart” in his life, but it slipped from Aziraphale’s mouth so sweetly that he didn’t know how he’d ever survived not hearing it.

Or, of course, how he’d survive without...

Not something to think about right now. He thought about Aziraphale’s eyes instead. How the little lines around them shaped them, filled them with joy and light and something that looked achingly like love. How they turned up to him now, widening just a bit, just for an instant. How they moved shyly away and then back again as Aziraphale began to blush.

“Why do you _stare_ like that,” he said, not quite making it a question. “I’m not at all attractive, I know that, but you look at me like —”

“You’re beautiful.”

Crowley moved his hands over the back of Aziraphale’s waistcoat, over the sides. There were too many places he wanted to put them, soft curves and wide rolls and none of it any less than perfect, exactly how it should be, because it was Aziraphale and whatever Aziraphale looked like was automatically perfect. Granted, Crowley had been smitten on sight, because the combo of cloud-fluff hair and smiling eyes and round hanging belly had been too gorgeous to ignore. But now he was in love. Aziraphale could turn into an aardvark and Crowley would still think he was —

“Beautiful,” he said again. “There’s only one reason you’re not neck-deep in wannabe boyfriends, and it’s not how you look.”

A smile hovered in Aziraphale’s eyes. “My personality, then?”

“ _No_ , you cheeky bastard.”

The smile spread across Aziraphale’s whole face.

“Same thing I keep telling you. Just the shit lie almost everyone learns.” Crowley squeezed gently with his arms, and even more gently with his hands. “You got taught it too. But I was skipping class that day, so I know the truth. You’re prettier’n there are words invented for yet.”

Aziraphale wiggled in his arms just a little. “How strange,” he murmured. “I can almost believe it when you say it.”

He leaned his head against Crowley’s cheek. Took a deep breath. “I —”

Crowley waited. Held him close and waited.

“I suppose,” Aziraphale said at last, “that we had best be off.”

He pulled back, extracting himself from Crowley’s arms slowly, and Crowley almost tried to keep him. Stopped himself just in time, though. At least they held hands once Aziraphale had closed up the shop again. They talked lightly on the way back to the car, about the weather for their trip, about a play coming through Soho next month.

“I’ll pick us up tickets, my treat.” And when doubt flashed over Aziraphale’s face: “Not getting rid of me after today, remember? We’re gonna be — be friends.” Crowley swung their hands a little. “Stupid of you, not opting out when you had the chance.”

Something much better than doubt settled across the soft features. “Oh, it will be a complete nightmare. But I’m committed now.”

Crowley kissed him before opening the Bentley’s door for him. Kissed him again once they were both in, one hand cupping his cheek. It was like there was a finite number of kisses left, and he could feel the counter ticking down every time he stole one more. Maybe only ten remaining... now only nine...

“Ready?”

Aziraphale gave him a brief little smile. “If you are, then — then yes. Ready.”

It’d maybe been noted once or twice in Crowley’s past that he had a tendency to drive kind of fast. The Bentley was a gorgeous piece of technology, after all, and when he really let her go, she could _fly_. The thing about speed, though, was it ate up distance. Tadfield was where it would all end, where he’d have to give up this brief dream and go back to reality. He could still pretend he had forever as long as they weren’t there yet.

So he drove very carefully under the speed limit, and stopped at every yellow light. If Aziraphale noticed, it didn’t come up in their meandering conversation at all.

“...and then he asked me how to remove the watermarks. On the graphics he’d already ‘decided’ he wasn’t going to pay me for!”

Aziraphale’s gasp practically clutched its own pearls. “He _didn’t_.”

“Right?” Crowley gestured vaguely toward the road ahead of them: _You see, this is what I have to deal with, this is my cross to bear._ “Told him where he could shove it, of course. So he just slapped ‘em up on his website anyway, ‘StarMaker Graphics’ labeling and all.”

“Oh, his own clients must have had a few questions about that.”

“Yeah, probably. But _I_ got two new clients who liked what they saw on Cheapskate Arsehole’s site, so I don’t really care.”

Aziraphale laughed, his sparkling giggle, the one that meant he was absolutely delighted. When Crowley glanced over he could see that same delight in every line of Aziraphale’s face. Round cheeks pink, eyes sparkling in their nests of joyful lines, lips drawn up in a huge and glorious grin. Good. Making Aziraphale laugh like that was always good.

“You poor dear,” Aziraphale said, the giggle still dancing around the edges of his words. “Freelancing is so much more fraught with peril than I ever realized. How do you do it?”

Crowley would’ve winked if his eyes had been visible. “With _style_.”

Another peal of laughter. A soft hand resting on Crowley’s arm. Full and singing, his heart was, and if he could stop time he’d do it now to hold the feeling forever.

“Yeah, but, y’know, I — I still like the work. Creating something new.” Crowley grinned down at the soft hand for a second, because it hadn’t just not left, it had actually started rubbing at his shoulder. “And I can pick when to do it. Don’t have to sit in an office all day. Not that I have kids to spend the time with or anything, as mum keeps remin... ding...”

His face went hot. “Nnn. Never mind.”

The hand on his shoulder paused, but still didn’t leave. Aziraphale’s voice was just as gentle. “Is it because you’re... not interested in women?”

“I — wh —” Crowley’s foot tried to lean on the accelerator, maybe on the logic that it could outrun the awkward that way. “‘S not that, I mean, I’m — I am interested, in — in anyone, I don’t really... that’s not one of the things I care about...”

The hand started to draw back, now. Sort of hesitant. Fuck. Whatever. Aziraphale was his friend, right? Real friends wouldn’t judge for this stuff. And it wasn’t like Aziraphale could dump him for it when they weren’t actually dating.

“‘M biromantic. Which she knows,” Crowley mumbled at the windscreen. “And the ‘nope, nuh-uh, absolutely not’ kind of asexual.”

“...ah,” Aziraphale said, a strange little catch in his voice.

“Which she doesn’t know.”

“ _Ah_ ,” Aziraphale said again, and this time there wasn’t any hesitation at all. “We have to keep our secrets, sometimes. I understand.”

He squeezed Crowley’s arm.

“I do understand.”

He dropped his hand back to his lap then. It was fine, though. That squeeze said a lot. So did his smile, when Crowley risked a glance over: not directed at Crowley, just sort of aimed off into the distance, but it made Crowley’s heart bounce a little in his chest. Even when it vanished suddenly, Aziraphale sitting up straighter and going just a little bit pink. That wasn’t a _what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-with-this-weirdo_ reaction. Crowley wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t that.

“So,” he said, because it seemed like someone should say something.

“Quite,” Aziraphale replied.

The Bentley rumbled. The road hummed by outside.

“Probably twenty minutes till we’re there. You still good with this?”

A little chuckle worked its way out of Aziraphale’s throat. “You’ve had to put up with two weeks of build-up, dear. It would be terrible form to let you down now.”

Put up with. Sure. Lot of bother, play-acting the boyfriend of the most beautiful man in the world.

“I’ve also been curious what sort of stories your mother might have to tell about you.” Aziraphale sounded like he was smirking, the bastard. “Does she have any of your childhood photos? Perhaps I’ll find out.” 

“ _An_ gel...”

Peals of sweet laughter, and then Crowley laughed too. Raised one hand long enough to ruffle it through Aziraphale’s curls. “Impossible. Absolutely impossible, you are.”

Aziraphale batted him away, still giggling. “Hands on the wheel, you fiend —”

There wasn’t any more awkward silence after that. When Crowley pulled up in his mum’s driveway and turned off the engine, they were both too deep in conversation to actually leave the car. It wasn’t until the front door opened and a familiar figure stepped out that either of them remembered.

Blue eyes looked up at Crowley, suddenly doubtful. “You... you are _sure_ you want to do this with... me?”

The car was stopped. There was no reason not to reach out to him now. Crowley did, slowly, letting his hand cup one round cheek. He smiled, feeling his heart ache, when Aziraphale leaned into the contact, every bit as though he actually enjoyed it. Maybe he _did_ enjoy it. It made perfect sense — he’d basically admitted to having been lonely, to not having been loved the way he deserved, for years and years and years. Maybe he’d just been starved for the touch of someone who cared. Maybe he’d been happy to throw himself into the arms of a friend only because it was so good to be held with any kind of love at all.

Crowley stroked his thumb against Aziraphale’s skin. “I asked you, didn’t I? Not anyone else. Just you.” He lowered his voice to try to stop it from wobbling. “You know I’d be proud to bring you home to mum. If — if we were really...”

Aziraphale nodded. “If we were. Yes.”

The motion slipped Crowley’s hand into the soft curls again, and he gave them one little tousle, trying not to grin too sadly. “Think it’s time for the show. Ready?”

“Let the thwarting of heteronormative machinations begin,” Aziraphale said, and the twinkle in his eye was small but definitely there.

Crowley resisted the urge to kiss him, just long enough to bound from the car and around to the other side. Passenger door opened, Aziraphale very solicitously helped out, and _now_ Crowley kissed him, was kissed back, wrapped in beautiful fat arms. Only eight left, maybe. The counter ticking down again.

“All right, then, angel.” He took Aziraphale’s hand, weaving their fingers together. “Come meet my mum.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Crowley's mum's for real this time. The boys wanted to be adorable for 2k more words before they got there.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley have dinner at Crowley's mum's. The whole point for this little fake dating arrangement is now over and done with. Finished. No More(TM). Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter-level warning notes:** The word "fat" is used in a neutral context. There is concern expressed about maybe encountering fatphobia but it will be okay I promise.
> 
> Probably two more chapters to go!
> 
> **ALSO OH I FORGOT** but Hope ([AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_in_the_dark/pseuds/hope_in_the_dark) | [Tumblr](https://hope-inthedark.tumblr.com/)) gets credit for Crowley's mum's name.

Aziraphale wondered if they could tell that his legs were shaking. His hand was, too, and certainly Crowley would be able to tell that.

“Tony!” exclaimed the woman, who didn’t actually look as much like Crowley as Aziraphale had expected. Tall and slender, yes, but her graying hair was brown, not red, and there was hardly any resemblance at all except around the eyes. Those were eerily like Crowley’s, dark and rich and expressive.

“Mum,” Crowley agreed, and Aziraphale realized belatedly who “Tony” was. Anthony. Of course. Crowley let go of his hand to embrace her as they reached the house, and Aziraphale stood back, feeling a bit foolish.

“Welcome home, sweetie.” She peered around Crowley’s shoulder. “And this must be...?”

When Crowley turned back, there was a grin on his face which Aziraphale was all too familiar with. “Oh, him? Dunno. Just picked him up on the way. Cute, though, isn’t he?”

“Anthony Justinian Crowley!”

Aziraphale flushed, nearly retreating another step. Crowley was already sweeping long arms around him, though, one hand cradling the swell of flesh above his hip, the other gentle on his chest.

“Mother dear, may I present to you Aziraphale.” His voice still had that grin running through it, the one that meant he was being an utter wretch and was unrepentant about it. “Who’s still cute even if I didn’t just run into him along the M40 somewhere. Aziraphale, this is my very saintly mother.”

“Charmed,” Aziraphale said.

It was hard not to see a certain hesitation as she looked him over. He’d dressed smartly for the evening, of course, in a subtly embroidered waistcoat and his newest bow tie. He still knew what sort of figure he cut. The waistcoat did nothing to hide his size, especially with Crowley’s hand on his side, drawing attention to one of the fattest parts of him. He did not think he was imagining Mrs Crowley’s eyes focusing there for a moment. He most certainly did not imagine the way she frowned. She looked to Crowley, and oh, this would be the moment of humiliation, as she opened her mouth and said —

“Tony. My child. How am I supposed to welcome him properly if you can’t let go of him for ten seconds?”

Crowley released him with a grumble. Mrs Crowley’s frown cleared instantly.

“Hello, Aziraphale,” she said, and hugged him.

It was ridiculous, how quickly the tears gathered in his eyes. He was accustomed, now, to Crowley’s ready acceptance, to his open arms. Even if they undoubtedly wouldn’t show as much affection to each other after this farce was concluded, Aziraphale knew that the affection was there. But that was _Crowley_. He was a strange and wonderful man, and one of a kind. No one else had wanted to do more than shake Aziraphale’s hand in far too many years.

And yet without any hesitation, Crowley’s mother had folded Aziraphale into her long arms. She wasn’t any stronger than Crowley, but when she squeezed Aziraphale let himself be drawn closer, enough that she wouldn’t be able to avoid feeling the soft bulk of him.

“I told Tony this on the phone, but you are absolutely family here.” She patted him on the back, then let him go again. “So welcome home. My name is Fran.”

Aziraphale murmured some kind of response before they were all swept indoors. The house was perfectly lovely, neat as a pin, though without the sparse minimalism of Crowley’s flat. Mrs Crowley appeared to have a predilection for framed prints of wildflowers.

The sitting room was dim, curtains drawn mostly closed. Crowley dropped his sunglasses onto a table as they passed it.

“I’ll have to pop into the kitchen in about forty minutes to finish up dinner, but that shouldn’t take long.” Mrs Crowley stopped next to a comfortable-looking chair which faced a matching sofa. “Would you like something to drink meanwhile?”

“W-water, please.”

“Yeah, same, thanks mum.” Crowley dropped down onto the sofa, smiling at his mother as she left the room, then turning the expression on Aziraphale. “All right, angel?”

_How many more times will I hear you call me that? Perhaps eight or nine, if I’m lucky? Will you still smile at me this beautifully, as if you loved me, as if you could?_

“This is, ah. A new experience for me.” He sat down next to Crowley and tried to smile back. “Being taken home to meet the parents. When I was dating, no one ever wanted to —”

He stopped. No use dwelling on it now, when warm brown eyes were soft upon him. Long arms opened, an invitation to come closer, to be held. The jut of his middle, the sheer width of him, were supposed to be objects of disgust, but if he were to take this invitation then he would find gentle hands cradling him before he could so much as blink. It would even feel real, if he suspended disbelief just a little. Real love. The love of one friend for another, yes, that wouldn’t require any self-delusion at all; romantic love as well, if he dared to imagine it.

He shifted over, slipping easily into what was a familiar posture by now, leaning against Crowley’s slender form. The arms enfolded him, one hand immediately finding the top of his belly. The other hand rubbed a slow circle before settling perhaps halfway down his waistcoat.

There was a brief pressure on the side of his head. A kiss. One quiet, unasked-for kiss, with Mrs Crowley still audibly busy in the kitchen. One could never accuse Crowley of a lack of dedication to the role.

“ _I_ want to,” Crowley murmured, still on the last thing Aziraphale had said rather than where his thoughts had wandered to. “Can tell because I did. Took you home to the parent, anyway. Sorry there’s not both.”

“Goodness. Of all the things to apologize for.”

Crowley laughed, arms drawing tighter for a moment. Aziraphale could feel it in his own chest, the rumble of Crowley’s mirth, and it was a wonderful sensation. Something they could share, just the two of them. He fully intended for them to share many more laughs when all this was over. This was just the last chance to be held like this. To be held at all.

His throat ached with that thought, when he spoke again. “But yes. It’s a very strange experience, but I’ll be all right as long as — as there’s something familiar.”

This time, the arms around him shifted in a slow, deliberate way. The hand on the middle of his belly resumed its circling. Crowley’s breathing seemed to stretch out, deep and slow.

“Am I familiar enough?”

Surely Aziraphale was imagining the roughness in Crowley’s voice. Or if it was there then it was part of the sham, part of the act.

Wasn’t it?

“Oh yes,” Aziraphale replied, as sincerely as he knew how. “I rather think things will always be well, so long as you’re around.”

There was a strange little noise behind him. “Gh. That. That’s good, then.”

Mrs Crowley returned soon afterwards. Crowley made some comment as she set down the glasses, and she responded with a laugh. It seemed as though they might continue on a conversation mostly led by Crowley, which would have been fine with Aziraphale; except Mrs Crowley turned to him not long after, dark eyes full of curiosity. “Tony tells me you own a bookshop?”

“I do, yes.” Aziraphale hoped he didn’t sound too nervous. “I deal largely in antiquarian and rare books.”

“How nice! Is there a lot of interest for that in Soho?”

He straightened up, forgetting, for the moment, how important it was to savor every moment of Crowley’s touch while he still could. The arms slipped from around him, though when he reached out with his hand, he felt it taken immediately. “Ah, well, yes, quite a bit of interest, actually. Rather too much sometimes — that is, not from _proper_ collectors, but, well.” He frowned. “Some people seem to think that since the books are used, they must be _discounted_.”

“Oh yeah,” Crowley said, laughter flitting through his voice, "the Stevenson —”

“An 1884 edition of _Treasure Island_ , covers intact, hardly any tanning, worth two hundred pounds at least —”

“And she offers you a tenner.”

“Ten pounds! For a Stevenson!”

He and Crowley had turned to look at each other. Crowley’s beautiful face was bright with the sort of grin that meant he had intended to wind Aziraphale up, and had succeeded, and was enjoying that fact very much. It rather took the force out of what had been a good proper bout of indignation.

Crowley winked. “You’re pretty when you’re in a book huff.”

Mrs Crowley clicked her tongue, then, and Aziraphale realized with a guilty start that he’d all but forgotten her. She was smiling, though, even as she rolled her eyes. “Anthony _Jehosephat_ Crowley, I _swear_.” Then, to Aziraphale: “I hope you enjoy this. He never really gets any less full of cheek.”

“Is that so,” Aziraphale replied. He met Crowley’s eyes again. “Oh, I’m glad.”

Crowley’s cheeks seemed to redden a little.

“Most of my business is by mail, with people who I know can be trusted with such rarities.” Aziraphale went on, speaking again to Mrs Crowley. It was a little easier to talk to her now that he knew they agreed on the matter of Crowley’s wretchedness. “And I do some restoration work to help make ends meet. It’s not a lavish occupation, but I can’t imagine not spending my days surrounded by books.”

The alarmingly familiar eyes crinkled. “You like to read, then?”

Crowley made a sound rather suspiciously like a stifled snort of laughter.

“I do,” Aziraphale replied with great dignity.

“Also, birds like to fly —” Crowley was practically chortling with vexatious glee. “Ducks like to swim —”

“My book club,” Mrs Crowley went on, with the air of a person well used to soldiering on, “has been talking about trying something classic next, since we’re all a bit tired of our usual fare. Any recommendations? Something written by a woman, if possible.”

Aziraphale shifted excitedly on the sofa, barely registering the way Crowley’s hand squeezed his when he did. “Why, yes! There are any number of very good options across a variety of genres...”

It was almost a shock when Mrs Crowley had to get up to ready their meal. Had forty minutes passed so quickly?

Then his stomach rumbled, embarrassingly loud in the quiet room, and he had to admit that it did rather feel like dinner time.

Crowley laughed, but fondly. He rested a hand against Aziraphale’s waistcoat with what seemed like genuine tenderness. “Poor angel. Should’ve brought snacks in the Bentley for you. Don’t like the idea of you going hungry.”

“It’s not as though I need to be constantly eating,” Aziraphale snapped.

“Not what I meant.”

So soft, his voice. His eyes, as Aziraphale met them despite the warmth still staining his own face, were even softer. There was no need for — for _acting_ , not even for practicing, when they were _here_. Crowley had finally had his one trip home without unwanted matchmaking, and Aziraphale was very sure that Mrs Crowley was totally fooled.

A shadow passed over Crowley’s face, brows drawing down for the briefest sliver of an instant, mouth thinning and then returning to normal. Then he leaned closer, lips ghosting over Aziraphale’s, until Aziraphale closed the last breath of distance between them.

The kiss was one of the better ones they’d shared. Slow, and almost tentative on Crowley’s part, at least at first. When Aziraphale took that lovely face in both hands, thumbs running over stunning cheekbones, Crowley responded with a sound Aziraphale had never heard from him before. 

It wasn’t actually a sob. Crowley had no reason to —

The long arms wound around him. Crowley’s kiss was no longer hesitant, but still slow, still gentle. Aziraphale supposed an observer would think it had no passion in it. The observer would never understand what it did to Aziraphale, though, to be kissed so sweetly — not as a lead-up to more, because oh, Crowley was asexual, he no more cared for those sorts of things than Aziraphale did; and his kisses asked nothing, but only offered all the love in his beautiful heart —

Ah. Or rather, all the semblance of that love.

Aziraphale broke the kiss first. His moment of daydreaming in the car had been lovely, but this was reality. If he wasn’t careful he’d do something terrible, like tell Crowley he loved him.

“Aziraphale...”

Crowley swallowed. Drew back, away. It seemed as though his eyes were very bright, but perhaps it was only Aziraphale’s imagination. The catch in his voice was definitely only imagination, because there was no sign of it when he next spoke.

“Probably want to wash up before dinner, yeah? Can show you the way.”

Down a narrow hallway, dark enough that Aziraphale feared stumbling, though Crowley with his light-sensitive eyes had no trouble. He gestured to a door.

“Should be towels hung up, but if not, mum keeps spares under the sink.” Crowley paused. “I’ll be back in the sitting room.”

Aziraphale nodded.

For a moment, Crowley only looked at him. Aziraphale wondered if there was something he had missed, something else he was supposed to have said. The question was silenced in his throat when Crowley’s hand touched his shoulder.

This kiss was closed-mouth, lingering, a gentle pressure that gave at the very last with a sigh. “Five,” Crowley murmured, or seemed to.

“What, dearest?”

“Nothing. Go ahead and wash up.”

The washroom was as neat as the rest of the house. The towels on the rack were embroidered with delicate flowers.

Aziraphale looked at himself in the mirror. Nothing delicate about him, no, unless one counted the fluffy curls of his hair. He was all coarse and blocky shapes, right down to the tips of his round fingers. Beauty was not the same as worth, and he knew his own worth whether or not the world agreed with him. But he would never be beautiful.

_Could you ever truly think me beautiful, my darling? You say you do, but it’s an act — just the ruse —_

There had been no need for that kiss in the hallway. None for the kiss in the sitting room, after Mrs Crowley had left, Crowley’s throat letting out that ragged little sound when Aziraphale had touched his face —

If Crowley had wanted a real relationship with him, he could have asked any time. It wasn’t like he had to fear being turned down, as handsome as he was, especially compared to Aziraphale.

Unless, somehow, he _had_ feared being turned down.

Ridiculous. Aziraphale would go back out to the sitting room, and Crowley would be there, on his phone, most likely. He would probably look up at Aziraphale and smile, and there would be love in that smile, yes, platonic and fond. But not romantic. Of course not.

He went back out. “Your turn,” he said, lightly, and Crowley looked up from his phone just as expected.

His dark eyes filled with something joyous and aching all at once. He smiled not just with his mouth but with every part of himself, even sitting up a little straighter. He didn’t do anything so dramatic as gasp, but his chest did rise visibly as he pulled in a breath.

They were alone in the room, with no one to pretend for.

“Yeah,” Crowley said. He put his phone away, passing by Aziraphale (too close? Was it only because Aziraphale took up so much space that their arms brushed for a moment?) and down the hall.

This was madness. Aziraphale was spinning a fantasy out of nothing, now that the dream of the last few weeks was nearly over. That was all.

Dinner was a pleasant enough affair. Crowley hadn’t oversold his mother’s cooking; at the first bite of her roasted chicken, Aziraphale closed his eyes for a moment, wanting to savor the warm flavors of sage and brown butter, the juicy texture of the meat. The vegetables were also roasted, not steamed or boiled into limp nothingness. The pie was a delight.

There were a few stories of Crowley’s younger days, which were also a delight, and which Aziraphale carefully stored away for later reference.

Each time Aziraphale tried something new, he could feel Crowley’s attention. When he opened his eyes after the first bite of that delectable chicken, it was to the sight of Crowley looking as though he could taste it too, even though he hadn’t yet touched his own. An expression of deep satisfaction before he colored slightly and glanced away.

“This is truly scrumptious, Mrs Crowley, thank you,” Aziraphale said.

Two faces brightened, matching eyes crinkling in mismatched smiles.

“ _Fran_ , please, Aziraphale dear,” Mrs Crowley responded; “and thank you.”

Crowley’s voice was a slow drawl of warmth. “Told you my mum can cook. Wouldn’t offer you anything but the best, angel.”

“Oh.” Now it was Aziraphale’s turn to glance away, unable to stop his mouth from curving softly. “No, you wouldn’t, would you.”

Silence for a moment, before Mrs Crowley chuckled. “You know, Tony, I haven’t seen you this head over heels since that girl from nursery school.”

Crowley made a pained sound.

“Remember? You were going to run away and live with her in the Oxford Botanic Garden?”

“Mum —”

“You made her the cutest little flower crowns in the spring —”

“ _Mother!_ ”

“Yes, I am, and I think that means I’m allowed to embarrass you at least a little bit.”

Aziraphale smothered a laugh, politely averting his eyes, even if poor Crowley was enchanting when he blushed like this. Then Mrs Crowley reached out and placed a hand across his wrist, which earned her his attention immediately.

“Thank you,” she said. Aziraphale couldn’t manage much more than an interrogative hum, but she continued anyway. “I don’t get to see Tony that often anymore, him being so busy with his own life. But he still visits every few months.” She smiled, patting Aziraphale’s wrist. “I haven’t seen him this happy in a very, very long time. I can’t help but think that you’re the reason why, what with the way you two look at each other, so — thank you.”

_The way he looks at me is a lie. Surely only a lie._ “Why — why yes. You’re very — welcome.”

Crowley was looking down at his own plate when Aziraphale glanced over. The fall of his hair covered part of his face, obscuring whatever expression might be there.

The meal ended very satisfactorily, Aziraphale thought. Crowley laughed and chatted and was his usual charming self, gangly limbs at ease as he sat back, already done with his meal, waiting for the others to finish. He was on his feet with thrilling grace as soon as his mother began to talk of cleanup.

“Nope, no, you know I never let you do that. Go relax in the sitting room, mum. Aziraphale and I can handle it, yeah, angel?”

Mrs Crowley offered up a crooked little grin which Aziraphale had definitely seen on her son’s face before. “All right, sweetie, you’ve talked me into it...”

It almost wasn’t a surprise when Crowley kissed him midway through the dishes. When he dabbed a puff of soap onto Aziraphale’s nose, then laughed through the entirety of Aziraphale’s indignant (and, to be honest, not entirely serious) protests. The simple domesticity of it made something sing in Aziraphale’s blood, and it was hard to believe — hard to _accept_ — that he would never have it again after tonight.

He kissed Crowley, when the last dish had been put away. When Crowley had finished drying his hands, dish towel still held in loose fists. He shouldn’t have, it was selfish, foolish, couldn’t do anything but make the rest of the evening awkward — except Crowley kissed back, one hand weaving softly through Aziraphale’s hair, the other clutching the towel to his own chest like it might escape otherwise.

The rest of the evening was lovely. The three of them chatted in the sitting room a while longer, Crowley holding him close the whole time. They finally made their goodbyes when Aziraphale couldn’t stifle his yawns anymore.

Mrs Crowley hugged him goodbye. “I hope to see you again soon,” she said, “and please — _please_ call me Fran next time.”

Crowley helped him into the car, which was unnecessary, but sweetened by the kiss he left on Aziraphale’s hand during the process.

Both of them seated and buckled, Crowley paused for a moment, not quite meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “Guess that’s it, then. You don’t have to... you know. Anymore.”

If Aziraphale were a brave man, he could take Crowley’s hand, now. Touch his face. Slide a lock of hair behind his ear with the tenderest care he could manage. Tell him the truth.

He nodded, hands motionless in his lap. “A success, I would say. I assume you’re — pleased.”

“Yeah. Pleased.”

There was another silence, and Aziraphale thought Crowley might say more. Instead, he lifted one hand, fitting the Bentley’s key to the ignition, giving it a turn.

The car didn’t start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~yes i am railroading them no i do not apologize~~
> 
> I do, however, apologize for this chapter taking so long -- it really is my self-selected and usually very enjoyable goal to be a reliable source of Softness in these Unsoft times. Life has just gotten very Difficult, to the point where I end up too sad and anxious to do the one thing that reliably makes me happy and calm (i.e. write fanfiction). I will make no promises as to when the next chapter arrives. Sometime next week would be nice.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale unexpectedly have to spend the night at Crowley's mum's. What will happen? (No, there is not only one bed.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter-level warning notes:** The word "fat" is used in a neutral-to-positive context. There is vague reference to societal fatphobia, and also to internalized fatphobia, but I promise it is vague and brief.
> 
> One more chapter!

“You’re _sure_ you’re okay?” Crowley’s hands wanted to cram into his pockets. He could tell, because every time they realized he didn’t actually have any, they started fidgeting and jumping and looking for somewhere else to hide themselves. Aziraphale’s hair, maybe.

He swiped one through his own hair instead. “I can — can still call you a taxi, get you a hotel — I know you didn’t sign up for this —”

“I’m fine, Crowley.” Spoken calmly. Aziraphale looked calm, too, as he finished laying out his wallet and keys and things on the bureau. “The guest room is lovely. Your mother was very kind to offer it.”

“Yeah, but... I mean, you don’t have pyjamas, you don’t even have a proper toothbrush...”

Mum still kept some old things of Crowley’s around, because sometimes he managed to do something like spill soup all over himself, so he was set. Old t-shirt with a funny drawing of a chicken on it. Old pair of pyjama pants with no pockets.

Nothing in the house would fit Aziraphale, though. Just the stuff he’d worn all day.

He’d insisted Crowley go ahead and get comfortable, especially since Crowley was resigned to the sofa bed. Mum had bustled around arranging both beds without bringing up any other possibilities before heading off to her own room at the far end of the house.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said again, still calm. “Darling.”

Crowley stopped breathing for a second. Right. They were still pretending to date while they were here, which meant Aziraphale calling him pet names. Walking over to him, now, and putting one plump hand on his arm.

“I’m quite sure I’ll be perfectly fine for one night. You — you needn’t worry about me so.” The calm slipped just enough to let that bit of hesitation through. “But we should both get some sleep.”

Crowley rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah. Got a lot of yelling at my mechanic in my future, should rest up for it. Night, then, angel.”

He made it most of the way to the door.

“Crowley?”

“Yeah?”

When he looked back, Aziraphale was right behind him. The hand found his arm again, but this time it slid up to his shoulder.

Aziraphale’s round cheeks were the prettiest thing in the world, when he blushed. Other than his whole round face, turned up to Crowley with eyes shining, with lips parted. Or his whole round self. All of Aziraphale was equally prettiest, maybe.

“Won’t you kiss me goodnight?”

If there’d been any air in Crowley’s lungs, he might’ve answered that. Might’ve said _Yes_ , or _Absolutely fucking yes_ , or _Always, every night if I could, and kiss you good morning too why not, should we get that started now maybe? Can we just never stop?_

But it’d all been squeezed out of his chest by invisible fists, so he didn’t say anything.

Aziraphale’s hand curled around his neck as he leaned down. As Aziraphale stretched up. Both of Crowley’s hands pressed tight to the back of Aziraphale’s fussy waistcoat.

There’d been one kiss left, in Crowley’s imaginary countdown. One he’d thought of saving, hanging onto forever, because as long as he could pretend like maybe he’d get to kiss Aziraphale once more someday, then he could handle not getting to do it at all for the days and months and eternities in between. That was the theory, anyway.

He used it now, used it up, no hesitation and no questions asked. One soft and tender goodnight kiss. Aziraphale’s lips slotted perfectly against his own, and Aziraphale _hummed_ , the hand on Crowley’s neck stroking gently against his shivering skin.

Eventually Crowley had to breathe again. He pulled back, not enough to have to let go of Aziraphale, but enough to end the kiss. Zero. Zero left, now.

Blue eyes looked into his for what felt like a long moment. “Have a good night, my dearest. Dream of — of whatever you like best.”

“S-sure. Thanks.”

He must’ve left the room, because he found himself back in the sitting room, staring at the sofa bed. He’d never actually slept in it. When he crashed at mum’s, he always used the guest bed. Not an option tonight, though, since there would be an angel in it instead. An angel all tucked in warm under the mass of quilts, snuggled up in a soft, round ball, curly hair peeking out in a fluffy cloud and then maybe his face, too, as he woke up just enough to look at Crowley and smile sleepily and say —

What. _Join me here in this lovely bed, my darling Crowley, I’d like it ever so much if you could hold me and never let go_? That was where the fantasy would lead, yeah? Him with his arms full of Aziraphale, asleep but with no need to dream because he already had everything he needed? And maybe then a unicorn would come in the window. They could ride it to a magical kingdom where he wasn’t full of shit.

He wriggled into his own set of blankets on the folded-out sofa. Took his time getting comfortable, because once he was, there was only the dark, and the quiet, and a terrifying question.

Was he full of shit?

They’d need to act like a couple in the morning, but really, they were alone for the night. Mum’s room was all the way on the other side of the house. There was no way she could’ve seen Aziraphale look up at Crowley and blush. No way she could’ve heard him ask _Won’t you kiss me goodnight_.

No way Aziraphale had actually wanted to be kissed. Unless he had.

Crowley rolled over and stared at the ceiling. There’d been a hundred chances over the last few weeks for Aziraphale to say something. And he’d taken them — he’d let himself be vulnerable in front of Crowley, he’d pledged his undying goddamn friendship like it wasn’t obvious that of course he had Crowley’s in return. He’d had his say, and _I love you_ hadn’t been part of it.

But. But _Won’t you kiss me goodnight_.

Every time Crowley started to drift off, he snapped back to the memory of those words. Meant he was already awake when the quiet shuffling approached him from the hall sometime after 2 AM.

He could see a figure, pale in the darkness, wide and round and shaped just right to hold every bit of his love.

“Angel?”

The figure moved closer. “I’m sorry, I thought I heard you moving, and I wanted to see if... if...”

Crowley stretched with a groan. “‘M awake. What’s up?” He sat up, feeling a little stab of concern in his chest. “Something wrong? Bad dream?”

“No, my dreams these days are rather more —” Aziraphale broke off. His voice was a little less even when he continued. “Only, your mother was very kind to offer the guest room, truly, and I’m absolutely very grateful...”

He trailed off.

Crowley switched the lamp on, leaving it on the lowest setting, the one that didn’t hurt his eyes and wouldn’t be too sudden a change for either of them. He looked up at Aziraphale. Beautiful, nerve-wracked Aziraphale, who was wearing... oh, no. Crowley would’ve faked being asleep if he’d realized.

Aziraphale had gone to bed in his underthings, it looked like. Boxers that exposed the fattest, most precious knees Crowley had ever seen. A white t-shirt that skimmed over the round sweep of his belly, outlining it clearly in the lamplight, clearer than Crowley had ever seen before. That was it. Everything else totally naked, arms and legs and everything, and Crowley wasn’t quite sure if he was going to just spontaneously combust from being subjected to so much beauty, or what.

He noticed the way Aziraphale’s hands twisted against each other, though, and the pinched expression on his face. That settled it. No dying just yet.

Crowley patted the bed beside him. “Sit and tell me?”

Relief bloomed across Aziraphale’s face. The sofa bed made a noise under all his perfect weight as he settled into it, but it had the good sense to not do anything more than that.

“I can’t _sleep_ ,” Aziraphale sighed. “The guest bed is a bit uncomfortable, I’m afraid.”

Probably two whole inches of empty space between them. Maybe even three. It was fine. “Pretty sure the sofa’s even worse, or I’d trade with you.”

Aziraphale raised one hand to his mouth. “Oh, I don’t mean to complain, or to suggest the hospitality has been lacking in any way —”

“ _Aziraphale_.” Crowley put his own hand on Aziraphale’s wide back. “Told you, it’s okay. Not gonna be mad at you for not being comfortable.”

He rubbed his hand against Aziraphale’s back. Just comforting his unfairly gorgeous best friend, that was all. The best friend who couldn’t possibly be in love with him, because... well, just because.

“I’m very used to my own bed, that’s all.”

“Course,” Crowley said. Aziraphale shifted under his arm. The space between them vanished, taken up by warm angel. Fat thigh pressed to Crowley’s leg, heavy love handle pressed to Crowley’s side. Curly head not quite leaning against Crowley’s shoulder.

Crowley let his arm slide down Aziraphale’s back. Could pull him a little closer, maybe, with one hand on the far side of his gorgeous belly. Yeah. Yeah, turned out he could. Turned out that when he did, Aziraphale went right along with it. He settled his head on Crowley’s shoulder with a tiny fluttering hum.

“And the mattress in the guest room is, well. Somewhat firm.”

Crowley nodded, feeling Aziraphale’s hair tickle against his chin.

“While I prefer it if the bed is...”

“Soft,” Crowley murmured. “Poor little angel. Should always be soft and comfy and — and surrounded by cozy things. Things almost as soft as you.”

Aziraphale grew very still. “Crowley. What are you doing?”

He’d been starting to doze off — Aziraphale leaning against his side, tension draining, although now it whispered through his round body again. He wasn’t pulling away from Crowley’s hold, but he’d stopped melting into it, too.

Crowley knew exactly why Aziraphale was asking. His hand had been moving on Aziraphale’s side. Tracing circles, gentle and slow, against the roundness of him, under the fabric of his undershirt. When his fingers found the hem, though, they’d slipped beneath, and then there hadn’t been anything at all between them. Crowley’s hand had caressed Aziraphale’s bare skin, feeling it give just a little beneath his touch.

The hand was stopped now. Trembling and guilty against Aziraphale’s perfect belly.

“I. I was just.”

He felt Aziraphale shift again, pulling farther away. Past the heat of the rising flames in his face he could see _Aziraphale’s_ face, and it looked almost like Aziraphale wasn’t angry, or offended or annoyed or anything like that, like maybe he looked — thoughtful? Maybe he was putting the pieces together, and him realizing the truth would be bad, but him coming to some horribly wrong conclusion could be much, much worse.

Crowley felt everything go quietly numb except his mouth. No, that still worked.

“It’s all been real,” his mouth blurted, as Aziraphale rose and stepped away. “All of it. For me, anyway, I mean, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t — I haven’t —”

Aziraphale looked back at him. He still had that same look, eyes narrowing, head tilting to one side.

“The thing of it is,” he said. “The thing is.” His voice went rough, and he looked away, then back at Crowley again. “These roles we’ve been acting, this ruse... it’s not needed anymore, really. We would probably raise fewer questions if we... well, reprised it, come morning. But we did already achieve your stated goal.”

Which was true, if you wanted to put it that way. Crowley had gotten what he’d wanted out of this, one trip home free of heteronormative machinations, and that was the end of it.

Except that wasn’t all he’d wanted. Not even close.

He stood up. Didn’t follow Aziraphale across the room yet, but stood, arms stiff at his sides. Funny, how it hurt to hold so much emptiness in them.

“Could stop it right now if you wanted,” he said. “All the pretend. The fake. The — the kissing for _practice_. No reprises needed of that.”

Aziraphale’s face lost the considering look for just a second. “How’s that, then?”

“Kiss me for real.”

All the oxygen dropped out of the room.

Aziraphale stumbled back a step, eyes gone half the size of the world, and he was definitely done with whatever deep thought he’d been doing. Whatever conclusion he’d drawn was apparently a pretty big shock.

“Kiss me for _real_. Not because of any stupid ruse,” Crowley said miserably. “Not because someone’s watching, and — and not so it’ll look _right_ when someone’s watching. Because you.” He took a deep breath. “Want to.”

There was an endless pause. “Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, long after Crowley’s bones had crumbled into dust.

“No more pretend. If you want.”

Aziraphale drifted closer, staying just out of reach. “You... you want me to kiss you.”

Crowley jerked a nod.

“You were... touching me. You were willingly touching my...”

His cheeks went pink, and he didn’t seem to be able to finish the sentence. Crowley nodded again anyway. “Yeah. Willing. Extremely very willing. Do it again if you ever let me.” He closed his eyes, pressing his hands against the lids. “If you don’t just hate me for this entire fucking fake _thing_.”

“Ah. Yes, we... we will have to do something about that, won’t we.”

The words should have destroyed Crowley, should have shattered his heart. _Do something about that_ , sure. Where the something would probably involve Aziraphale never talking to him ever again.

But there was something in Aziraphale’s voice, something that...

He looked at him again, feeling a thin tendril of hope in his chest. Wondering if that was what he’d heard in Aziraphale’s voice.

* * *

“I’m ending our arrangement,” Aziraphale said. “As of this moment, we no longer have any romantic entanglements, whether false or... or otherwise.”

He realized he was wringing his hands again. He forced himself to stop, lacing the fingers together, pressing them to his middle. There was the familiar curve of belly, so very much more of it than he _ought_ to have, according to adverts on the television, according to strangers on the street. All this supposed excess of him. He had known, absolutely and without doubt, that he would be the only one who could ever value the whole of himself.

He had perhaps been wrong.

Crowley’s dark eyes were locked on his. His hair was an artless mess, tangled to his shoulders, swept clumsily back from his face. The color had gone from that face, and it was like looking at a statue. A god in marble, magnificently handsome, coming to life with a long and shuddering breath. “No entanglements. Right. Single as anything, us.”

Aziraphale did not think he was very good at being brave. This seemed like an excellent opportunity to practice.

“I love you,” he said, and his voice nearly left him. “Could we be boyfriends?”

Crowley’s mouth quivered.

When Aziraphale stepped forward, there was no reaction, at first. But then he took one more step, finally putting himself back in arm’s length, and Crowley moved again.

His hands rose, slowly, shaking, and fitted themselves to the wide spread of flesh above Aziraphale’s hips.

“Love you so much, angel,” he murmured. “We can be anything. Long as I get to be yours.”

Aziraphale clung to Crowley’s shoulders, his neck, the crimson fall of his hair. His voice broke beneath the weight of a sob. “Darling. My darling —”

Then Crowley pulled him close, hands cradling him. Thin arms winding around him, squeezing impossibly even closer, as if all Crowley wanted was Aziraphale, was _all_ of Aziraphale...

“Angel. Oh, no, no. Oh, you’re crying.” Crowley nuzzled into Aziraphale’s hair, sounding near tears himself. “Can cry if you need, but, but if you tell me what’s wrong I can fix it — I’ll do anything, just —”

Crowley’s hands rubbed gentle patterns against Aziraphale’s back. His lovely body, so slim and finely-muscled, pressed tightly against Aziraphale’s much wider one. Such a contrast between them, and Aziraphale had thought for so long that it could only be a barrier between them. Built for solitude, he’d thought himself. Not ever for love.

He tried to hold in another sob, but it shook through him anyway. 

He found himself rocked, easily rocked in place as though he didn’t outweigh Crowley by a good six stone; as though he were something small and delicate, needing to be treated so gently. Crowley was stroking his hair, tender fingers weaving through again and again. Crowley was shushing him, softly, like a child. Like something precious. Like someone loved.

Crowley loved him.

“You can’t —” Aziraphale’s voice did not just break but shattered, this time, aching shards that caught like knives in his chest. “You can’t love just _part_ of me, Crowley. Not ever. I’ve — I’ve done that before, and I can’t do it again, not when it’s so much worse than just being alone...”

The last word trembled up and into another choked-off sob, hot tears falling from his eyes when he squeezed them closed. 

“Hey.”

Crowley’s hands both moved to his face, thumbs stroking his cheeks, now, fingers curled against the soft lack of definition about his jaw.

“Hey, no. Look at me, please, pretty angel? Please.”

“I’m not _pretty_ ,” Aziraphale said, but he complied all the same.

Crowley’s eyes fixed on his, dark and stunning and glowing with love. Then they shifted down. They moved over Aziraphale, cataloguing everything, no doubt — his double chin, his thick neck, his wide arms. The softness of his chest, and the heavy hang of his belly.

When those eyes returned to meet Aziraphale’s again, their expression hadn’t changed.

“In love with _you_ ,” Crowley said. “Course that means all. Why would I ever settle for just _part_?”

Which... which he had said, hadn’t he, a thousand different ways over the last weeks, if only Aziraphale had been willing to understand? With sweet words which he had meant, every one. With smiles that made his eyes glow just like this. And with his hands — hands which were always gravitating towards Aziraphale, toward the round heaviness of him which everyone was supposed to hate, which Aziraphale had decided to love.

All the hours cuddled together on the bookshop sofa with Crowley’s hands wandering his belly — goodness, the way Crowley had _put a hand up Aziraphale’s shirt_ to touch it. Of _course_ Crowley loved it. Loved Aziraphale. Loved all of Aziraphale.

Still hard to believe, but Aziraphale would learn to do so. Perhaps with the aid of further demonstrations.

“Turn the most gorgeous pink when you blush, y’know.” The voice was teasing, but the lips that brushed his cheek trembled. “Makes me wonder what you’re thinking.”

“W — well, I certainly wasn’t thinking about anything untoward —” Ah. Except Crowley wouldn’t know that. “But, dearest, there’s something I should tell you.”

Crowley wrapped him in long, clinging arms. “If it’s that you’re beautiful, I already know.”

“Well, it’s certainly not _that_ —”

“Really did fall for you the first time I saw you. So fat and pretty.” Dark eyes gleamed at him. “Thought I’d never get to hold you. Never get to —”

Crowley pressed his face to Aziraphale’s shoulder, breathing deeply.

“You could hold me forever, I wouldn’t mind —”

The arms around him clutched even tighter, accompanied by a satisfied hum.

“— and I daresay you could do anything else you wanted, too. If I — if I understood you properly, on the drive over.”

This hum sounded more confused.

“Your, ah... views on...” Aziraphale felt his face go not just warm, but hot. “...intimacy.”

Crowley’s hold on him loosened slightly. “Sex,” he mumbled into Aziraphale’s shoulder.

“...that, yes.”

“Don’t want it,” Crowley noted, voice still muffled. “Not anything like that. Not ever.”

Aziraphale sighed into the tangles of hair. “Neither do I. Oh, my love, we’re the same.”

Silence, except for Crowley’s breathing. Then he kissed Aziraphale’s neck. His jaw, and under his chin — Aziraphale tried not to laugh at the sensation — and the corner of his mouth.

“Lots of — of other kinds of intimacy, for the record.” A wicked grin danced across his face, even though he was blushing nearly as hard as Aziraphale. “If you’re interested. Just, er, y’know. Putting that out there.”

“ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale said, in as scolding a tone as he could muster. He curled his fingers softly into Crowley’s hair. “We have been dating for _ten minutes_.”

“Feels a lot longer,” Crowley answered, before Aziraphale captured his lips one more time.

There was very, very much more to say, and more kisses to be had, and there was that delightful suggestion of chaste intimacy which would need to be explored at a later date. When Aziraphale found himself _yawning_ , of all things, though, Crowley insisted on bundling him off to bed again.

This time, there was no need to ask for a goodnight kiss. It was offered freely, a gentle touch of Crowley’s lips on his, followed by another one on his forehead.

“Sweet dreams, pretty angel,” Crowley murmured. “I love you.”

“Dream of me, my treasure,” Aziraphale answered, and the sudden dizzy smile that wreathed Crowley’s face made his heart take flight. “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I warned on Tumblr that there might be tears. If you did shed any, then I hope they were happy ones.
> 
> This is not the end of the story! There will be one more chapter sometime next week.
> 
> Also, if you were wondering about that "funny drawing of a chicken" shirt Crowley owns -- yes, it is in fact the one from [this lovely fanart](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/619457703442563072/and-the-beautiful-wringing-referenced-direct-from) by Tumblr user kbeekill.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of what happens, once the ruse has been put aside at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter-level warning notes:** The word "fat" is used in a positive context.

Crowley woke to a hand upside his head.

“Ow,” he announced. He rolled over, bleary eyes cracked just enough that he could see the offending appendage. It was attached to an arm which was now shoved between the pillows. _That_ was attached to a body which was mostly an indistinct lump under the blankets.

The lump moved again, but this time the arm pulled its hand very delicately away. 

“Oh dear. I did it again, didn’t I?”

Crowley grabbed the hand before it could finish retreating. It was very fat, and very soft, and it wove its fingers between his without any hesitation at all. “First time in a couple weeks. Still loads better than when I first moved in.”

The hand let go of his as the lump rolled onto its side, and a second later, Aziraphale’s contrite face emerged from the covers. “No one warned me sharing a bed would be so difficult.”

“Oh, _difficult_ , he says.” Crowley wriggled closer, enough to twirl his fingers into those already sleep-mussed curls. “Sleeping next to me is _difficult_. When I’m the one getting thrashed about —”

He kissed Aziraphale, slow and tender, to make it clear there weren’t any hard feelings.

“— but no, _you’re_ the one having to put up with something _difficult_ —”

This time Aziraphale kissed him.

“Wretched thing,” he murmured. “Perhaps if you got more sleep, you’d be less cranky.”

“Nah, I already sleep too much. Cuts into the time I can spend looking at you.”

There was just enough light in their bedroom to see the smile that earned him. The blush, too, spreading across Aziraphale’s pudgy cheeks, but the smile was winning.

“Beautiful angel.” He ran his hand over Aziraphale’s shoulder, down his soft side. Slipped it beneath the covers to rub against the front of his pyjama shirt. “Love you so much. All of you. Even your inability to sleep without punching your boyfriend.”

“ _Punching_ , Crowley, _really_ ,” Aziraphale huffed. But he wiggled a little deeper into his pillow, humming pleasantly as Crowley settled both palms against his belly. “I love you too, even if you do seem to think that looking at me involves your hands.”

Crowley made some shrugging noises. “It’s a, a generic term. Some things are just, you know. A feast for all the senses.” He leaned in to kiss Aziraphale’s cheek, the one that wasn’t snuggled into the pillow. “Some _people_.” He aimed a kiss for Aziraphale’s nose, but Aziraphale giggled and hid his face and Crowley got his hair instead. “You. ‘M talking about you.”

“You’re impossible,” Aziraphale said into his pillow.

“And you’re beautiful. But I think we covered that.”

Aziraphale pulled his face out of his pillow, then stretched, rolling over onto his back. “We can cover it again if you like, darling. I certainly wouldn’t mind.”

Crowley didn’t know whether to laugh or squeeze him, so he did both, coiling around him in a clinging mess of arms and legs that left his face nestled against Aziraphale’s soft chest. “You got a week? Should be long enough to tell you everything I love about you. Inside and out.”

The body beneath him rose and fell with a quiet breath. Two, three. He was wondering whether maybe Aziraphale was falling asleep again when he felt as much as heard the murmured response. “I have a week, yes. I do believe I have forever.”

Fingers wove delicately through his hair.

“For you.”

Something very large and very calm unfurled in Crowley’s chest. A white-winged thing which could destroy him, but which cradled his heart in tender hands instead.

He sat up, covers sliding off his shoulders to pool around their legs. Aziraphale smiled up at him with his eyes full of light.

“I could do forever,” Crowley said. “Long as I still had all of you.”

He balanced himself on one hand so the other could draw Aziraphale’s shirt up. Uncovered just enough precious fat belly that he could kiss it. It was blessedly soft, pressing down under the force of his lips, and crossed with dozens of stretch marks that he couldn’t see in this light but that he knew would always be there.

“Missed a spot,” he said, and kissed it again.

“You missed rather a lot of spots, I’m afraid.” Aziraphale yawned. “You’re not actually being efficient about this at all.”

“Rather be thorough, I think. Very... very... thorough.” Each word was followed by another kiss, on bare skin and then the shirt over Aziraphale’s heart and then his smiling lips. That one lasted a little longer once it became apparent that Aziraphale wanted to contribute, too. 

When they’d assumed their usual positions again — Aziraphale on his side, Crowley spooned up against him with his arms as full of adorableness as he could get them — there was silence for maybe a minute. The only reason Crowley knew Aziraphale was still awake was the dimpled hand trailing back and forth against his own.

“Crowley.”

“Yes, pretty angel?”

“I’m glad we agree.” The hand squeezed gently. “About forever.”

Crowley’s heart swelled, up and out to fill his chest, the room, the whole world. “M-might just ask you properly at some point,” he said, barely a wheeze past all the golden light and shining feathers and extremely enlarged cardiac muscle.

“And I’ll consider my answer very carefully.” Aziraphale’s voice was pert, but he quivered, a little, in Crowley’s arms. His hand gripped Crowley’s and didn’t let go. “You are a bit of a terror, after all. I need to be sure I know what I’m getting into.”

* * *

Aziraphale padded down the hall in his shirtsleeves.

“Yow,” Crowley said, flashing him a lazy grin from the kitchen. “No one told me I was getting a show.”

It was, of course, the same sort of thing he said every morning that Aziraphale decided to come to breakfast without finishing getting dressed first. In his usual attire, undershirt and button-up and waistcoat or jumper, there were certain details hidden, certain features obscured. One thin layer of knit cotton hid nothing at all. Fortunately, neither of them had any problem with the results.

“You’re horrible,” Aziraphale informed Crowley, passing by him and headed towards the stairs down to the shop. “I’m fetching the mail,” he called back as he descended.

There was a clattering. “What, giving the whole neighborhood an eyeful too? Lucky bastards!”

He would’ve blushed at that sort of thing, once. He would have been aghast at the idea of opening the front door like this at all, undershirt clinging to the hang of his belly as he bent to pick up today’s deliveries.

“ _Crowley_ ,” he said, even though there was no one but himself to hear.

Back upstairs, everything was on the table, piping hot and probably delicious — Aziraphale took his turns at cooking breakfast willingly enough, but he didn’t have Crowley’s knack for omelettes.

Most of the mail had been left downstairs, but he placed the last of it at the center of the table. A long box, clear on one side, containing a single red rose.

“Crowley,” he said again, feeling himself smile just as fondly as he had downstairs. “Another one, really.”

Rich brown eyes laughed at him from across the room. “Brought this on yourself. Never should’ve told me you’d never gotten flowers. And looked so _soppy_ at the idea.” He brought over two mugs, setting them by the plates, then filled his hands with Aziraphale instead. “Should’ve known what I’d do if I had the chance.”

“But you can’t keep giving me a rose _every_ day, you sentimental thing.”

“Can do it till I get bored.” His teasing grin softened as he drew Aziraphale closer. His arms weren’t at all strong, but they still held more firmly than steel. “Till I’m sure you know how much I love you.”

What was intended to be an exasperated cry found itself murmured against tender lips instead. “We have been _married_ for almost _four years_ —!”

Crowley’s mouth opened gently on Aziraphale’s, just enough to let a happy noise slip through when Aziraphale kissed him back. His hands made it very clear just how pleased they were to be on Aziraphale’s sides, on his back, sneaking beneath the shirt’s hem, one of them, to curve against Aziraphale’s belly. There was no mistaking his being completely, utterly in love with Aziraphale.

Certain embarrassing past mistakes notwithstanding.

Aziraphale tangled his fingers in Crowley’s long hair, trying to press every bit of his reverence into those yearning lips. 

“Mnghmf,” Crowley remarked.

“Rather,” Aziraphale sighed.

He let himself be led to his seat. Crowley then slouched into his own chair, long-limbed and handsome in the morning light, the scruff of unshaven stubble only accentuating his fine jaw.

Crowley’s attention was all on him as he took the first bite. Egg perfectly cooked and seasoned, flavors melded together with a hint of young gruyére topping it off — it was every bit as wonderful as he’d expected. He closed his eyes so nothing could distract him from the taste.

When he opened them again, Crowley’s smile was even more wonderful. “Glad you like it.”

“Love is the finest ingredient, my treasure. ...although the tarragon helps too.”

It was a slow day for the shop, which was fine by the both of them. Aziraphale saw no problem in closing up shortly after 11 to head out (fully dressed, no matter Crowley’s suggestions to the contrary) to the cafe for a nibble. The same old cafe — it had been remodeled last year, but the coffee and pastries were still the same.

When Crowley’s phone went off not a block from their destination, he mumbled a few choice profanities.

“It’s fine if it’s a client, love. Take as long as you need.” Aziraphale guided them both over to the edge of the pavement, up against the building they’d been passing. “If it’s a telemarketer, though, I wouldn’t mind you hurrying them along.”

Crowley dug out his phone, leaning against the wall, lifting his arm without looking and then settling it over Aziraphale’s shoulders when Aziraphale snuggled up underneath. “Oh, it’s neither.” He hit a button. “Hey mum! Got you on speaker with Aziraphale.”

“Hello, Fran,” Aziraphale added.

“My boys! I wanted to make sure we’re still on for next weekend. I’ll have those lovely roasted pears you enjoy, Aziraphale —”

Aziraphale felt himself brighten, Crowley’s low chuckle and squeeze around his shoulders telling him exactly how obvious he was being.

“— and dessert will be Tony’s favorite iced biscuits.”

Crowley grinned wickedly. “For me only. The rest of you lot get no biscuits because I claim ‘em all.”

His mother’s eye roll was practically visible through the phone line. “Anthony Jupiter Crowley...”

Aziraphale chuckled, wrapping his arms around Crowley’s slender waist. The call went on a few minutes longer, mostly Crowley and his mother joking back and forth, though Aziraphale chimed in whenever he felt the need.

“You two take care of each other,” Fran said as they were winding up.

Crowley’s hand slid into Aziraphale’s hair, petting it back from his forehead in long, soothing strokes. “We will,” he answered softly. “Bye, mum.”

For a few moments Aziraphale let his eyes drift shut. Crowley’s body in his arms was a familiar shape, precious and loved. Crowley’s hand working through his hair was a familiar comfort, gentle and slow.

Eventually the hand switched from stroking to gently tousling. “Want to take care of you,” Crowley murmured. “Go get you something nice to eat. Yeah? Beverage of your choice.”

“Oh, darling.” Aziraphale rested his head against Crowley’s shoulder, breathing out in a sigh the greatest truth he knew. “I love you so.”

“That a yes, then?”

A grin in the words, and on Crowley’s face, when Aziraphale looked up. He made a rather undignified noise of surprise when Crowley kissed him on the nose, then tried to cover it up with one of his best pouts. “The least you could do is to say it _back_.”

His hands were swept up, suddenly, held between them, pressed to Crowley’s chest. Crowley’s glasses hid his eyes, of course, but Aziraphale didn’t need to see them to recognize the rest of his expression.

“I love you, beautiful angel.” Crowley’s voice roughened on that last word, and Aziraphale felt his own breath catch. “All of you.”

He let Aziraphale’s hands go, although not before giving them a long squeeze. It was only another dozen paces or so until they reached the cafe.

Crowley pulled the door open with a flourish. “After you, gorgeous.”

Aziraphale stepped through, joining the line at the counter. When long arms wrapped around his middle, accompanied by a contented little mumble, he sighed. “I married an octopus,” he tried to complain, “all these clinging arms everywhere...”

“You like it,” Crowley sing-songed.

“I’m sure I _don’t_.” The arms shifted, their hands cupping against the roundness of his belly, gentle and sure. Aziraphale put his own hands over them and smiled. “I don’t appreciate all this taking liberties with my person at all.” Then, trying to look back over his shoulder without actually disturbing Crowley’s hold, “You’re making me quite cross.”

Crowley laughed, settling his chin onto Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Lies. Lying about it all. See right through you, I do.”

“And what makes you so sure about that?”

“Because, my pretty little angel. My fat, perfect husband, who I’m gonna keep taking care of forever, if he lets me.”

Aziraphale accepted both the endearments and the kiss on his cheek with a giggle.

“Turns out, us? We’re both _terrible_ actors.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming along with me on another of these, everyone. Or, if this was your first venture into the Soft Zone, then hello! Welcome! Thank you for coming along with me on an adventure of unknown qualities! I hope it was nice.
> 
> Because I seem to be primarily a multi-chapter human AU writer these days, my next fic posting is coming Saturday the 11th, and it will be... the start of a multi-chapter human AU. It's for the Do It With Style Mini Bang! It's called The Ghost Of Your Past And Mine, and you can check out the latest about it on [my Tumblr](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/tagged/ifof%3A-diws-tiny-kaboom). There will be a podfic by [dragonsquill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonsquill/) and artwork by [apocalypsenah@Tumblr](https://apocalypsenah.tumblr.com) and I just really hope you enjoy it. And I hope your days between now and then are good ones. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you were thinking of leaving a comment, please know that I treasure every single one. I've literally cried a few times reading some of the lovely things people have said, and they really are fuel for my soft little heart -- but never, ever required, so please don't feel pressured. 
> 
> If you want to say hi on Tumblr, I'm [ineffablefool](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com) there, too.
> 
> I would never actively request art from anyone I wasn't paying, but if you, the human reading this, were to decide it was worth your time to create fanart based on any of my stories, I would be incredibly honored ([and would love to enshrine it forever on my Tumblr](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/tagged/ineffablefool-gets-fanart-from-lovely-people))! I have only one requirement: please don't draw Aziraphale any thinner than the size I headcanon (I need both my soft cuddly daydreams, and my positive fat representation). Here are some examples of what that sort of minimum body size/shape might look like: ([beautiful fanart created for me by Squeegeelicious](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189282541139/squeegeelicious-a-walk-to-the-ritz-for)) ([speremint 1](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186342035100/i-did-this-instead-of-my-hw-ya-girl-is-gonna)) ([speremint 2 from her Reversed Omens AU](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186574829700/finally-finally-done-making-these-refs-my)) ([dotstronaut](https://dotstronaut.tumblr.com/post/186740069618/no-really-i-dont-think-you-all-understand-how)) Otherwise, the characters can look however you like!
> 
> I hope you're having a fantastic day.


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